Free Motion Monday: The Beginner Edition, Week 2

It's week two of my Free Motion Monday for beginners this month. I've heard from many and it's so wonderful to hear that you are giving free motion quilting a try or improving your skills.

designs for beginning free motion quilting

I shot a video for this week, two actually, and then I edited out where I got tongue-tied and said an unkind word to myself. :-)



This week we're continuing on with loops and adding in various shapes. Hearts, leaves, flowers and insects. These designs work great for baby quilts which are the perfect size for practicing your FMQ skills. Anybody else seem to be surrounded by a bumper crop of babies? Goodness, it seems they are everywhere here.


The variations with this loopy design is pretty much endless! Link up below and share what you've done.


A few points to respond to questions that I've heard from beginners recently:


  • Don't forget to drop your feed dogs if you are covering them with a Supreme Slider . Unless you set your stitch length to 0 (and not all machines will let you do this) the motion will tear up the Slider.
  • A related note- Some people don't drop their feed dogs. I do, and I set my stitch length to zero. Since the dogs are lowered, the stitch length is really irrelevant, and your hand motion is what creates the stitch length. Experiment and see what works best for you.
  • Don't forget to lower your presser foot before starting to stitch. Since the foot hovers (or hops) above the quilt, it's easy to forget this step. But if you forget, you'll have a big mess of loops underneath.
  • Relax and give yourself permission to play!
  • For thread breakage issues, see last weeks post on Ten Tips to Solve Breaking Threads, if you're still having problems, leave a comment or email me.
Check out last week's post, The Beginner Edition, Week 1 for links to other helpful posts for beginners and other tips.


Here are the link up guidelines:
  • Keep your post relevant to this quilt along please. Spammy posts will be deleted.
  • Make sure you link up to the individual post, not your home page as nobody wants to have to search around for the post if they're a little late to the party.
  • Reciprocate! Link back to this post somewhere in your post or use the clickable blog button in your sidebar. You've got to dance with the one who took you to the party, so make sure you link back.
  • Don't be a wall-flower. (Talking to myself here too. In person I am so stinking shy!) Visit the other links, be sociable, and leave comments.
  • Please make sure you leave me a way to contact you if you are a no-reply blogger, especially if you ask a question.
Please link up to show what you've been quilting up, especially if you are a beginner.

On-line class experts, Craftsy is having a sale on many of their classes and they've got some great ones on free motion quilting too. See their link on the right hand side of my blog.


2 comments:

  1. Thank you very much Amy for your lessons! I try, please see: http://karita958.blogspot.ru/2014/10/blog-post_19.html#more

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  2. your vines and flowers are so pretty! i've done a little loopy before, but not much. wish i had something good to share. all i did was random loops down a skinny strip. i liked it, though, and would like to try it more. love the additions you have here.

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