I've been working on quilting the boy-colors baby quilt with the boxed squares. I stitched in the ditch around both sides of the frame for definition. I thought the squares needed something to make them more of a feature, so I quilted spirals in them. I am not skilled at free motion spirals; these were marked with a template and traced with the stitching.
The spiral quilting was slow going and took a lot longer than I anticipated, so I don't have a finish today. I still need to get this trimmed and bound. But any progress is good, right?
I'd like to work on FMQ spirals, but I get tripped up on spacing going in and then I'm messed up for coming back out. Does anyone have any advice for me? Thanks.
Friday Link Ups: Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Alycia Quilts
I have found marking spirals and tight circles really improves my quilting as well. In terms of free motion quilting spirals, I practice with pencil on paper to get to a point of consistency and sizing. It's not the same as moving a quilt under the needle, but if I struggle with pencil and paper then I have that much harder a time when quilting.
ReplyDeleteRelax first - the spacing will follow. Most of nature's spirals are not perfect so there's no reason why your spirals need to be mathematically precise. And the more of them you stitch, the easier it gets to feel the flow and adjust your spacing as you stitch. Try sitting with paper and pencil (or marker and paper) and draw rows of spirals to build your muscle memory - far cheaper than fabric and thread.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of the spacing comes with practice. On the long arm we use our foot as a guide to help with spacing. Perhaps you can try that on your domestic.
ReplyDeleteI do like the spirals in those blocks tho! I think it looks great, and its an almost finish -so it totally counts!
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I think that what you're doing is perfect. If you practice crooked/uneven free motion spirals over and over, you just ingrain the muscle memory for making them that way. But by marking them first with a stencil or something similar and following the lines, you develop for making spirals that are round, smooth, and evenly spaced. Back when they used to have figures as a competitive category for figure skating, the skaters would etch the patterns into the ice first with a scribe so they could practice "tracing" those perfectly-drawn patterns over and over agains with their skates, ingraining the muscle memory to later skate those figures perfectly in competition. I think your quilt looks great! You should link up with us for the Long Arm Learning linky party on Tuesdays at http://www.CheekyCognoscenti.blogspot.com. It's for all machine quilters, not just those on a long arm. We'd love to have you! :-)
ReplyDeleteI like to embrace “consistently inconsistent.” It’s okay if they aren’t perfectly even. It is more important that they are round and smooth.
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