Quilting with Rulers: Continuous Curves on Hexagons

I shared this pillow with you last week. I used ruler work to quilt it with "Continuous Curves" except as I shared, I didn't work out my stitching path ahead of time and my results were far from continuous! A couple of hexies in, I realized what my path should have been, but by then I had already stitched up my own quilting roadblocks and had to made do with several detours.

I did have a blast with the quilting anyway, using a Simple Circle template for my curves on my new machine with the new Janome ruler foot. (Janome Quilt Maker MC15000) I love quilting with rulers on this machine.

Making curves continuous takes discipline and an orderly mind, something I'm in short supply quite often. (I'm not the only one, am I?) You've got to just say no to completing one entire hexagon. Just don't do it! Instead, think "angle, angle, over, back. Angle, angle, over, back.

 Starting from the fushia at the bottom is the perfect illustration of  A, A, O, B. So is the green on the way down. But at some point you end up with something like the orange line. I don't want to cross over to the right for the horizontal motions of  'over and back' instead waiting for the purple pass to do that leg of the journey.

As I mentioned, I'm not the most orderly, being easily distracted these days (I need more sleep!) so I actually talk these steps to myself as I quilt. "Angle, angle, over, back." So far no one has come to fit me with an extra long sleeved sweater or for a vacation in a padded room.

There you have it: my orderly stitching path for continuous curves on hexagons. It's a fairly simple quilting design with rulers and suits this pillow perfectly.

How about you? I bet I'm not the only one who speaks the shapes or directions out loud when quilting. At least I hope not.

Happy quilting!