How to Choose Quilting Designs

Whether you use a walking foot, free motion, free motion quilting with rulers, hand quilting, or a combination of more than one of these techniques when you quilt your quilt, there are a lot of factors that can come into play when choosing designs. This is why "How do I Quilt This?" type classes are so popular and why this question can cause even the most experienced quilter to cringe (especially if asked in an email without any photos!).

I divide quilting designs into 4 major types:

Overall Designs- These are designs that do not pay attention to the piecing. Similar to a pantograph used by a longarmer, these are great designs for utility, bed and comfort quilts.

Block and piecing designs- These are designs that are based on the piecing. Designs for blocks, squares, triangles, borders and sashing.

The piecing here determined the quilting.

Fills- These smaller designs are for filling in spaces between other types of quilting, adding texture and interest along the way, sometimes they are even used as larger design elements in the quilting.

The Celtic Square design used here is both a motif and a block and piecing design and is surrounded by dense fills to make it pop.

Motif Designs- These are the ones we love to see in fancier quilts; the scrolls, feathers, floral motifs and more that are major parts of the design of a quilt in of themselves.

Don't confuse the types of designs with the type of quilting. There are designs in any of these four categories that can be done with a variety of methods of quilting. Tiny fills are usually free motion, much of what I do with rulers could be classified as block and piecing designs, and large swaths of straight line quilting all the way across a quilt could be done several different ways, but would still be considered an overall design no matter the method used.

Sometimes the design chosen decides the method of quilting. For example, a tiny, curvy, dense design is not likely a good candidate for walking foot quilting.

There are other times that the type of quilting (hand quilting, walking foot, free motion) the quilter wants to do, will help the quilter choose designs that work better for those methods.

Sometimes a design works well for several types of quilting and the quilter will determine which method to use. I could do straight line square spiral design with a walking foot, but since I love using my rulers, and especially if it's a big quilt, I'd choose to use free motion ruler work. You might choose differently.

Someone might choose big stitch quilting to add interest to a quilt and do it by hand, while another quilter, maybe with less time to spare, would set her machine up with some monofilament thread in the top of the machine and use a "hand-look quilting" stitch. Can you guess which method I'd choose? Leave your guess in the comments below.

The four types are not overly segregated and mix and mingle quite often. While overall designs are usually loners, typically, motif and fill designs work together and are pretty much mutually necessary. Block and piecing designs are good mixers in a quilt, and I think are the unsung heroes of quilting.

Overall Designs- Also called edge-to-edge designs. These are some of the easiest designs to begin with, but not all overall designs are simple. They can be large stippling, other larger meandering designs, or even feathers  as an overall design. You can get ideas for these types of designs by looking at quilts done by longarmers with pantographs. Some can even be quite complex, featuring horses, bears, flowers, stars, etc.

This design could be a filler , fit into a block, or made large as an overall design. You choose!

Block and Piecing Designs- This includes the tedious but many times necessary "Stitch in the Ditch" which can also be done with a walking foot without using FMQ. Once you have a good grasp of FMQ, doing stitch in  the ditch with the darning or free motion foot means no turning of the quilt as you stitch. Block and piecing designs can really enhance the piecing in a quilt.

Here's an easy sashing design.

Fills- Pebbles, smaller stipples, even closely spaced lines of stitching are in this category. Leah Day's site does a great job of categorizing and teaching many, many fills at the Free Motion Quilting Project. She's also produced three books of designs, one of which is From Daisy to Paisley: 50 Beginner Level Free Motion Quilting Designs. Keep in  mind that because of the scope of the project and the stitched samples, these designs are shown quite small. At the small size these are great for filling in around larger motif designs or in conjunction with block and piecing designs. It is up to you to decide at what size you want to quilt these for your quilt! Make them bigger and many can even be overall designs.

Motif Designs- Many of these designs benefit from good planning and marking. There's the classic feather wreath and all of its variations, feathered swags and borders. Some motifs are suitable for block and piecing designs too. Traditional whole cloth quilts are fabulous examples of motif designs coupled with fills. Two wonderful books by Karen McTavish (I have most of her books; they're great) The Secrets of Elemental Quilting  and Whitework Quilting: Creative Techniques for Designing Wholecloth and Adding Trapunto to Your Quilts give great examples of using motifs in quilts along with some great tips.

Some general tips for choosing designs:

Quilt Density: the denser the quilting, the stiffer the quilt. And of course, dense quilting takes longer and uses more thread. Save really dense quilting for wall quilts, fancy quilts, and yes, show quilts. No one wants to snuggle down with a stiff quilt, so for comfy quilts, choose an overall design or fairly simple block and piecing designs.

Abbie is happy I didn't quilt her quilt to death.

One of the big differences between what we can quilt with our domestic sewing machines versus those of the longarm machines has to do with our range of motion. We can only quilt in the space between our hands before we have to reposition our hands and quilt. Those using longarm machines, have a range of motion for stitching that is pretty much the range of their upper body motion. This means the designs we choose either have smaller shapes, well-planned changes of direction, or we have to be really good with our stops and starts when repositioning our hands. Usually, it's a mix of all three factors.

Many quilts benefit from "Stitch in the Ditch", stitching along piecing lines to stabilize the seams, keep things square and subdivide the quilt to keep shifting of batting and backing to a minimum. For the most part this type of quilting is done first and many choose to use a walking foot with the feed dogs up. But, again, once you become proficient at FMQ, doing it in free motion can be a lot faster with little or no rotation of the quilt needed.

Applique quilts can also benefit from stitching around the applique shapes. Ann Fahl's book, Dancing With Thread: Your Guide to Free-Motion Quilting, describes this type of quilting and regular stitch in the ditch quilting as stabilizing the quilt and recommends using clear monofilament for this type of stitching in case the stitches wiggle from one side of the seam or applique to the other.

This applique was carefully SID'd to make it pop.

Large motif designs with inadequate fills around them lose their impact. When properly surrounded with fills, motifs can really pop, making a faux trapunto effect. Couple motifs and small fills with a lofty batting and you've got some great dimension and texture. Larger areas of "white space" are prime real estate for motifs.

Much of this article came from a post I did years ago on "How to Free Motion Quilt: the Designs." You may want to see the line drawings there I did to show examples of various types of designs.

Tips for Beginners: 4 Things to Fix for Better Free Motion Quilting

Here are 4 things that keep you from better free motion quilting and some tips for fixing them.

Not drawing designs: Seriously, don't say you're not a good drawer or that you just want to get to stitching. Drawing really helps! I hadn't stitched out any free motion quilting designs when I was first learning to machine quilt, despite reading that all the teachers recommended it. Then hubby got cancer and I started doodling the designs in a notebook I carried to all of his appointments and the improvement in my stitching ability was amazing. So doodle, trace, draw, whatever on whatever. Use paper, a dry erase board, even a drawing app, but draw those designs. Not only does it help with the shapes and designs, but how to move around from one place to another.

One of my earliest free motion quilting projects.

Not practicing: They say it takes 10,000 hours for mastery of any skill. Do you have enough quilt tops to provide you with 10,000 hours of quilting? Don't look at your WIP or UFO pile when you answer that question! Do you want to learn on your beautiful tops? Probably not. Make practice pieces! Make place mats, dog beds, pot holders, create a cool sampler collection of your favorite designs, whatever. Or make nothing from them, just change colors often and stitch over and over on a practice piece until you can't stand to quilt on it again. Once you're confident enough to tackle real quilts, check out my post on 8 Free Motion Tips for Confident Beginners.

Look how much my girl has grown in that short time! 

You are too tense: Relax! Are your shoulders trying to whisper in your ears? Head retreating between the shoulders like a turtle? Give your arms a shake, drop those shoulders and loosen up. Take a look at your set-up and see if it's ergonomic enough for you. Is your chair at a good height? If you are using an extension table on top of the table holding your machine, you will probably need a taller chair so your arms aren't sticking out like chicken wings. Eliminate drag where the quilt rests too and make sure you aren't pressing down too hard with your hands or trying to stretch the quilt out too much with your fingers. If you need a little music or an adult beverage to loosen up, go for it. But quilt responsibly.

My quilting skills grew too.

Take a look at your hand position: Are they on either side of the needle, not too far away and not too close? Or do your hands tend to get out in front or behind the needle because you don't like to stop and reposition your hands? Are your fingers spread wide like you're trying to stretch the top? we don't want puckers, so keep the area between your hands flat, but don't stretch it. If you are quilting tiny, dense designs try using dropping your elbows on the table and try using your finger tips only in a bent position to move the quilt. Don't try to move your hands while the machine is running! Stop to reposition your hands and do it frequently.

I hope you have found these tips helpful. Sorry I don't have any recent quilting to show you, but I'm working on a secret project and it's kicking my rear. Yes, the blogger's dreaded secret project that usually means fewer blog posts for you, followed by a big announcement and shameless self-promotion. LOL! I promise not to let my sharing here slide. You guys are awesome and encouraging and I hate not having things to show you. (Yes, I'm a tease.)

Books for Free Motion Quilting

I have been meaning to share some of my favorite books for free motion machine quilting. There are a lot of variables in developing your free motion quilting skills, so it's great to have some resources at hand to learn from someone else's experience. I'll be listing these books and more on my new Tips for Free Motion Quilting page. Just click the button above to easily find some of my most useful posts and resources.

Threadwork Unraveled , by Sarah Ann Smith (her blog) is an absolutely fabulous resource for working with different threads and machine quilting, not just free motion quilting. And such beautiful pictures! There's even some great projects that will give you your own reference guides for threads and tensions on your own machine! I usually don't do book projects since I like to do my own thing and I'm a bit weak at following directions, but I did most of these.

Then there's Ann Fahl's Dancing with Thread . This is another feast for the eyes and takes you through the basics right up to advanced techniques. There's also great info for how to stabilize your quilt with various types of quilting for different kinds of quilts, more talk on threads, blocking and finishing.

Both of these books are great resources and I have had mine for a couple of years now and they are worth every penny.

There are two books by Diane Gaudynski (Guide To Machine Quilting and Quilt Savvy: Gaudynski's Machine Quilting Guidebook }that are just chock full of great info for free-motion-quilting and I have borrowed them from a friend from time to time. I keep hoping she'll decide to part with them one day as she pares down her stash. Diane's work is more traditional than the above books and her quilts are just beautiful. (Diane's blog)

These quilting pros will tell you to practice your FMQ by drawing and so will I. Below is my newly repainted door, complete with chalkboard and doodled feather. One day I am going to take a black paint marker to an awkward corner in my bedroom/studio and doodle a feathered tree. Doodling the designs really does improve your quilting and I find it very relaxing. I am a very visual person, so I love to put inspirational quotes where I can see them. Just behind this door, you can see a little peek, is a huge white board that I can work out a design on, or use as a brain-dump of sorts. I jot down ideas and keep them where I can see them or they are gone! But it is fabulous for doodling designs and doodling the designs really improves your quilting skill.

I offer up a long quote from my now abandoned blog, Sonshine Cottage:

October 6th, 2010
For some creative fun, try free-motion machine quilting. I think I'm addicted and I'm just learning how to do it. I used to love hand quilting, but I just can't take the time to do it now. Machine quilting is fast, and the free motion aspect frees me up from a bunch of tedious marking and measuring and feels more like drawing.

Using a dry erase board to practice the free motion designs was something I had skipped, but I worked on it last night and it was fun and helped me figure out what hand movements worked best for me. The pros recommend this sort of practice. Silly me for skipping it.

I plan on pulling out a few more books and sharing them with you soon, but right now I'm still spring cleaning the studio. Well, maybe it's more like avoiding the cleaning. With three kids at home all day, you can bet I have plenty to keep me busy!

Thoughts for Beginners

Source: joie-butter.com via Amy on Pinterest

No time for much of a post today. My interruptions seem to have interruptions of their own!

But I thought I'd share something from one of my Pinterest boards. We are all beginners at something at just about any given time and I found these words very encouraging to me. Maybe you will like them too.