Free Motion Quilting Swirling Leaves 2
I was hoping to get this piece finished today but I was getting tired and I'm learning when to stop 😊
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| Background Swirls FMQ |
I guess that it's been a while since I free motion quilted (FMQ) swirls. It took me some practice drawing and then I looked up one of Angela Walter's FMQ swirls video. That helped my confidence, even if I didn't really follow her instructions. I did some practice stitching but got really good about half way through the real quilting. It was a little more difficult than just quilting swirls since I had leaves to contend with. I wanted to stitch around the leaves as much as possible while still doing the swirls. Let's face it, from far, it all looks great!
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| An oops moment! |
After completing the FMQ background of swirls, I started quilting the veins on the leaves. I used the same thread that I had appliquéd the leaf with. I decided to free motion quilt over the zigzag stitches since there were small parts of the leaves that hadn't been stitched down properly. This worked quite well and isn't really noticeable. I've finished 7 of the 10 leaves.
Preparing the border
I wanted to make a border that I could stitch down by machine, without having to add binding. I cut my outside border 2½" wider than it was needed so that I could turn the fabric over and just stitch it down.
I trimmed the batting and backing first and then marked my turning line with a Frixion pen that will iron out. I then turned the border over, pinned it and then stitched it from the front. I'm going to have to hand stitch the corners a little bit at the back, but it really went well.
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| Trimming the backing and batting |
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| Marking the turning line on the border |
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| The border flipped to the back and sewn from the front |
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| Close up of the finishing of the outside border |
What I learned
- After the last time I disastrously trimmed the backing, I was quite nervous about doing it again! I must have checked my calculations and my measurement 10 times before I actually trimmed the batting and the backing. It all went very well 😊
- Right now the borders are a little floppy - this will be fixed once they are quilted.
- I'm still not sure how I want to quilt these borders. I'm considering doing some straight line stitching in the inner border and then possibly some big leaves in the outer border.
- It took me longer than I expected to get into the groove of FMQ the swirls. Although I have been doing some FMQ, I think that I need to do it more often. With the holiday season coming, I have a plan and I hope that you'll enjoy it and maybe even stitch along with me! More about that soon.
- I'm hoping to get this finished this weekend so that I can hand it over to the auction organisers.
Related links
- Swirl Meander Machine Quilting Tutorial with Angela Walters
- Previous posts on Swirling Leaves 2
- Swirling Leaves at Free Motion Mavericks, November 3, 2022
- Swirling Leaves 2 coming together, October 31, 2022
- Playing in isolation, October 23, 2022
- Swirling Leaves for Hello Fall Blog Hop, September 23, 2020
Linking parties
Free Motion Mavericks
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| Boxer floor cushion by Raewyn |
The backing fabric is perfect for Swirling Leaves. So frustrating when you have a fear of doing something and you end up doing just that. I really love this one and the background, you couldn't have chosen more perfect fabric.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much!
DeleteI have gotten over my fear of stippling and all it took was lots of hours doing it and seeing my progress and improvement. :) Nice job! I am working on feathered wreaths now and am not really happy with the way they are turning out. I'm even contemplating picking out the stitches of two wreaths to do something different. :(
ReplyDeleteHi Melva, I'm sorry to hear about your wreaths. It took me a long time to get feathers done well. It was the drawing that finally did it. Best of luck and thanks so much for linking up!
DeleteI hate when I do that. It usually works to cut the fabric close to the seam line on both sides then use tweezers to pull out the leftover bits....not fun but you can do it!
ReplyDeleteThanks Kathleen. Yes, I'll be able to do it but I will be more careful next time!
DeleteYes, I've done that with excess backing before too - and I did what Kathleen did, snip close to the stitching and then use tweezers. I haven't seen/thought of folding the borders to the back as binding before - it looks good. Well done on the swirls - and guess what - you're nearly finished! Thanks for the shout out too!
ReplyDeleteThanks Raewyn, yes, I'm almost finished. I'll be going into the office on Friday to drop it off. Looking forward to being totally finished! I need to blog about something else :-)
DeleteI have also quilted through my backing like that before. (It has been awhile though because I have switched to mostly using a long arm.) Your swirls look great!
ReplyDeleteThanks Jasmine, I guess that that is one of the advantages of a long arm!
DeleteThe never ending fear of quilting through the backing. I bet we've all done that. Your project sure is turning out cute!
ReplyDeleteThanks Sandy, I'm glad that it did turn out well.
DeleteEverything you said in this post resonated with me -- FMQ is not "just like riding a bike" that you can take a break from for a couple decades and then just hop on a bike and off you go. I'm thinking it's been two years since I spent any time practicing FMQ, and this is the first time I'm doing it since getting my Bernina longarm, and I definitely needed some time to get reacquainted with how the machine moves, experiment with frame/stool height, handle position, stitch length and idle speeds to feel like I was starting to settle into a groove again! My swirls were definitely coming out like Flintstone wheels, which is especially annoying after seeing how perfectly round the swirls are when the computer is driving the machine instead of me... ;-). But yes, it does look better from a distance and my wobbly little "pebbles" that look more like raggedy rocks on the practice piece are just disappearing into the background fabric with the lightweight matching thread I'm using on my real quilt. Thanks for keeping this linky party going! Interesting border binding method you're using, too, by the way, and your hexi project is looking fabulous!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Rebecca and sorry for taking so long to reply. I've been enjoying your return to FMQ with your holiday quilt. Thanks for dropping by and linking up when you can :-)
DeleteCongrats on getting the quilting done, it turned out beautifully.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Kate!
DeleteIl est adorable ce mini quilt, bravo ! Avec un peu de chance (et beaucoup de patience !) le morceau de molleton sera facile à retirer du dos, ça me l'a fait une fois, ce n'est pas drôle.
ReplyDeleteMerci bien Frédérique, ça n'a pas été très difficile à réparer, juste plutôt frustrant :-)
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