Free Motion Quilting-A Fun Exercise

February 9, 2015
Free Motion Quilting, Fabric Tracing

Free Motion Quilting, Fabric TracingGood Morning, Quilters!

Welcome to St. Valentine’s Day Week!  I laughed out loud to hear that many of you saw a face in yesterday’s Silent Sunday!  I ALWAYS see faces, but I did not see a face in the iron gate.  I saw a heart!

Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite holidays–especially for quilting.  The colors and motifs are PRETTY!

The new header motif is The Extra Sweetheart Border–with a little flourish added on top and bottom.  It’s a very pretty motif and you don’t have to wait for Valentine’s Day to use it.  It looks great on almost any quilt (maybe not Ness’s Football quilt…)

Free Motion Quilting, Fabric TracingHave you ever tried fabric tracing?

Fabric Tracing is a free motion quilt technique where you stitch along the fabric’s printed design.  (Adding your own embellishments along the way!)

It’s a great way to practice free motion quilting.

Free Motion Quilting, Fabric TracingWhen you’re finished, both sides of the fabric look great.

Use your quilted fabric as a quilt or to make something like a purse or a pillow.

You’ve just created your own coordinating fabrics:  a printed side and a solid side with matching motifs!

Use the printed fabric for the front of the pillow and the solid quilted fabric for the back!  Gorgeous!  I bet you could sell them on Etsy!

Free Motion Quilting, Fabric TracingTry to find large prints with fairly simple designs for best results…

I’d love to see what YOU make!

PS…Does anyone know of any WordPress compatible software that would allow readers to upload images for everyone to see–bypassing Flickr?

Tomorrow is Free Motion Quilting Tutorial Tuesday…and I have a pattern you’re sure to LOVE!

Lori

PS…All tutorials, images and information are the property of Lori Kennedy at The Inbox Jaunt and are intended for personal use only.  Feel free to re-blog, pin, share with attribution to The Inbox Jaunt.  For all other purposes, please contact me at lckennedy@hotmail.com.  Thanks!

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18 comments

  • Kay smith

    Jane Sassaman has wonderful big flowers in gorgeous line of fabrics…..

  • Terry Sheldon

    Lori, love your heart quilting!

  • Susan Stanton

    Happy Saint Valentine’s Day to you! Love your blog with your great ideas. Thanks so much for sharing.

  • I’m new to WordPress, so I’ll be curious what others might recommend and why you want to avoid Flickr?. I do have the JetPack Pluginwhich has some photo features, but I think more for photos on a sidebar (and many other features making this a good add-on). The Slideshow Plugin is also fun. Wish I could be more help, but I still have oodles to learn on wordpress (and FMQ).

    QuiltShopGal
    http://www.quiltshopgal.com

    • Terry Sheldon

      Well, I for one find Flickr almost impossible to use and organize. I did manage to get 2 photos added, but can’t get them into folders. It is just not worth the frustration, to me. Maybe I’m in the minority…

      • The Lisa Marie

        I’m also having trouble using Flickr. It’s very frustrating!!

      • WordPress.com Support

        You are not alone. That’s why I’m researching other options

  • Karen A. Parker

    Another approach to this same theory is to use the floral fabric on the back of a pieced quilt. Do the same free motion type of outline, and ta daaa…. you have your quilt quilted in a beautiful all over floral design. Great for the beginner!

    • I took a class on this technique a while back, based on the book “Quilting Front to Back” (C&T Publishing, 2001). Amazon has it – I tried to copy the link and paste it here but it wouldn’t work – sorry!

    • Wow…that is a GREAT idea!

    • Lorraine

      I love that idea, Karen A. Parker!

  • Good Monday Morning Lori!! 🙂 I have tried this heart motif doodling and stitching…love it!…if I don’t let my head tell my hands what they are doing I did great! My head kept arguing whether I was doing the top heart or the bottom! LOL! Sometimes you need to hog tie the techy part of the brain down and duct tape it’s mouth and let the creative side take over…haha! It is so cute. I added a heart to Orrin’s label by the way 🙂 haha!
    I have followed fabric patterns to quilt before…it’s fun! Reminded me of those color books with the tracing paper in between the pages to trace your picture when I was little! Remember those!
    Make it a marvelous Monday everyone! 🙂 Now I’m off to yesterdays post to see the face I missed….LOL!

  • sillyandrea

    “Does anyone know of any WordPress compatible software that would allow readers to upload images for everyone to see–bypassing Flickr?”

    You;re hosted on wordpress.com, so you;re very limited here.

    If you were self hosted and used WordPress.org and a regular web host, you could add any number of plugins to allow this, without adding readers as authors on your blog.

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