Free Motion Quilting-Quick Tip
Happy Monday, Quilters!
Today, a Free Motion Quilting Quick Tip
DON’T ROTATE YOUR QUILT
Try this little experiment…
- Begin with a small quilt sandwich.
- Choose your favorite motif. (The motif above is The Easiest Flower Ever.)
- Place the quilt sandwich on the sewing table, under the needle.
- Draw the letter “X” on the edge of the quilt that is facing your belly button.
Now stitch your favorite motif. The entire time you are stitching, the edge with the ‘X’ should remain facing your belly button.
The X will move up and down and left and right, but it should always remain facing YOU. Never rotate the quilt while you are sewing.
Later, you may need to change which side has the “X”. In that case, leave the needle in the “down” position and rotate the entire quilt. Make a new “X” and stitch away…Same rules!
After you give this a try, please let me know how it worked for YOU!
LOVE to hear!
Signed,
XXXOOO
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 or share with attribution to The Inbox Jaunt. For all other purposes, please contact me at lckennedy@hotmail.com. Thanks!
Excellent advice!!! and something that I stress to others, also! Learning to FMQ in all directions is a “must”!!!!!
So glad you pointed this out. I usually make bed sized quilts and I quilt them on my domestic machine. The advice that I see so often from people who claim to be quilting teachers is to simply rotate the quilt to change directions and so forth. That’s not practical when FMQing a queen or king sized quilt–I’ve had to learn to quilt in all directions and that’s a skill all FMQers should master. It’s like learning to drive a car with a manual shift–you may not need it now but you probably will sometime in the future.
Thank you for that hint, very handy to know!
Just curious – are you saying “while sewing” don’t rotate the quilt. Or never rotate the quilt… or only rotate once you stop and only in the needle down position. Just making sure I understand… as one new to FMQ. btw absolutely love your blog and lessons!!! I’m doing FMQ like I never thought I would because of you!
Many thanks for this … to think of FM quilting an entire quilt is scary for someone who has never done it before, but if I only have to think of one section at a time, it changes the perspective and makes it doable!
This is a helpful hint. I’m finding that I after 3 turns, my minds freezes and the design gets un-fluid. Did that ever happen to you when you started?
Absolutely! It still happens now when I haven’t doodled enough or am indecisive!