Good Morning, Quilters!
Yesterday, we worked on Amanda Murphy’s ruler work quilt-a-long offered by BERNINA’s We All Sew. The downloads, video and instructions are all offered free by BERNINA. I highly recommend Amanda’s excellent instructions and videos to anyone interested in ruler work.
I am a beginner at ruler work and am excited to be learning this technique. I will be showing you my results every month and I thought it would be fun to show a free motion quilted version of this project as well. Free motion quilting creates a hand-drawn look.
STRAIGHT BECOMES WAVY
I started by chalking out Amanda’s layout.
When free motion quilting, it is impossible to quilt a long, straight line–SO DON’T TRY–
I stitched a slightly wavy line to create the background layout and I closely echo stitched each line. Double stitching gives the line a little more emphasis.
( A double needle will work for this technique.)
The first area to quilt in Amanda’s quilt-a-long is the piano keys. With ruler work, no marking is necessary. In free motion quilting, the lines must be marked.
I used a chalk marker to draw evenly spaced lines and then I free motion quilted the lines. Short, straight lines are possible with free motion quilting, and they don’t have to be perfect for this technique.
The second area is the Bricks. In the ruler work method, again-there is no need to draw any lines. For free motion quilting, I needed to draw a few horizontal lines to keep my bricks in line. I free motion quilted the Bricks using the ( Brick Tutorial HERE).
The third area in Amanda’s quilt-a-long ia the Modern Plaid.
I stitched wavy lines. I’m not happy with how this turned out-but I don’t think the problem is free motion quilting. I stitched double wavy lines and I think it is too much in this small space. If I could do it over again, I would still stitch single, wavy lines.
I am enjoying the process of learning ruler work, but if YOU are not ready to jump in…there’s always the HAND DRAWN LOOK!
Have YOU tried Ruler Work?
Do YOU like the look?
Do YOU prefer a hand-drawn effect?
How do YOU think the two looks can be combined effectively?
We’d LOVE to hear!
