Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.”
Luther Burbank
Today’s Topic: Refining Flower Motifs for Better Quilting
It may be useful to watch the short video: Flower Power and Faye’s Flower
Good Morning, Quilters!
Welcome to the Better Machine Quilt-a-long based on my book 25 Days to Better Machine Quilting.
(Find all of the previous Lessons HERE. Sign up for emails of the class HERE.)
Jumpstart YOUR Quilting and Doodling
Hope you all enjoyed yesterday’s BONUS PROJECT based on handwriting! It’s easier to quilt scallops if you tell your brain to quilt the letter “i”. Loops are easier if you are thinking about the letter “l”. Use your handwriting to jumpstart your quilting!
Faye’s Flower
Today, let’s look at examples of quilted flowers and refine the design just a bit. Learning these flower pointers will help you learn other patterns.
Faye’s Flower is a densely quilted and compact flower. It is a showy flower that really stands out in the garden of quilting. One of the keys to this motif is to start with exaggerated U shaped petals. This creates a nice gap between the rows and very prominent petals.
EASY Flower Power
Flower Power is one of the easiest motifs to learn and to stitch. However, there are a few tricks.
Flower Power can be stitched in any size with one row or 15 rows. As the flower gets bigger (by adding more rows), the petals should remain nearly the same size, with more petals in each row. This is easy to stitch!
It is much more challenging to stitch if every row has the same number of petals with each petal getting larger and larger.
Weedy Flower Power
Flower Power is intended to be a compact flower to use as a background fill or focus motif.
To keep the flowers compact, add short curls between flowers. When the stem between flowers is too long the motif looks stringy or weedy. The short stem may allow on three petals in the first row, but subsequent rows will fill in and the flower will look fab!
Next Week: Lesson Three is Doodling and a Giveaway!!!!
Next week we will be discussing doodling in depth and we will try a Facebook Live event–details to follow. If you don’t have Facebook, don’t worry! We will provide the recording.
You’ve already completed two weeks of quilting! WOOHOO!
I’d LOVE to hear YOUR early successes!
Happy Quilting, Doodling and Gardening!
Yours truly,
Lupine Lori
Read about Luther Burbank HERE
PS…All tutorials, images and information are the property of LoriKennedyQuilts.com and are intended for personal use only. Feel free to re-blog, pin or share with attribution to LKQ. For all other purposes, please contact me at Lori@LoriKennedyQuilts.com. Thank you!
You might also enjoy my motif books: Free Motion Machine Quilting 1-2-3 and More Free Motion Machine Quilting 1-2-3
17 comments
Judy Millard
Just did a combination of Flower Power and Signature on a sun visor. Would you like photos of our work sent, and if so how should we send them? I certainly can understand that you might not want to be overwhelmed with pictures, so no problems if the answer is no.
Lori Kennedy Quilts
Any chance you could post in our private Facebook group?
Karen Coddington
I love this! I think I might be getting better. Thank you so much!
Rita in Iow
Stitched out Flower Power and Fayes Flowers and stitching my name. Doing lots of doodling and things are improving. Great tips today and made a great difference in my stitching. Hubby says it’s looking better. Very excited about better quilting in 25 weeks.
It’s a great way to learn as you can take a breather when it’s not going so well.
Thank you so much.
Jenni
This is very helpful! I’m off to practice shorter stems!
allydadd
loved the extras on the flower power. Mine were looking but I understand the technique better now. Also the difference between same size petals and same number of petals. thank you.
allydadd
I left out that mine “were looking a bit weedy owing to make the stems too long”
Linda
Would you please explain, in a future lesson, how to do punctuation? ie..apostrophes, commas, etc., Thanks!
Marta
I had to go ahead and mail it like it was to be on time for birthday. : ( But I will remember your solution for the next time ! Thanks !
Marta
It’s Friday and may I describe an experience and ask a question? Month or so ago I was working on a quilt onto which I wanted to sketch a design to embroider… very simple wheel and spokes (son is bicycle racer) but about 24 inches in diameter. The fabric was a dark blue plaid. I finally decided on chalk for the lines to follow by hand. What a nightmare, the chalk would not come off after the hand sewing with every method I tried. I looked online and eventually settled on Mr Clean Eraser and rolled up strip of coflex to “brush off” with. I had originally assumed chalk would easily brush off with back of my hand. Only about 75% of it came off with that method. I have to hope the rest will not stay on long after being used.OK… so how do y’all get your chalk off?
Rhianna Pearl
Hi Marta, I have the same problem. I use soapy water and a wash cloth. Lots of warm water!
Rhianna
Terri
My first name begins with a T, which when I sign something the stem looks like a backwards J and the cross at the top is a upside down curve. The cross at the top isn’t the problem. When I sign my name I always pick up my pencil then start a lowercase e.
Susan_in_LA
Thank you for these fine-tuning tips. I’ve been practicing flower power, but my garden never looked quite right. Now I know why: the stem between the flowers is too long. I’m looking forward to doodling and practicing some more.
Ellen
Same here! I also was trying to do the same number of petals in each row on Flower Power. Now I know I don’t need to!
Robin Mikjaniec St Thomas Ontario Canada
Hi Lori
Every day I go back to doodling and I find that each time I’m better and more in control. Thank you so much for all you are teaching us!! Not only is it educational It’s a lot of fun!!
Debbie Dvorak
Lori, in doodling my name I ran into a problem. My first name ends in an ‘e’ and my last name begins with a ‘D’ . How do I get from one to another!
Thanks
WordPress.com Support
Retrace the e back to the bottom line then begin the D from the bottom.
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