The Best Way to Improve Your Free Motion Quilting
I know I say this a lot, but one of the best things you can do to improve your quilting is to DOODLE!
Doodling helps build the muscle memory for free motion quilting.
When you sit down at the sewing machine, you should already know each motif and be able to draw it without hesitation.
It is much much more difficult to stitch THE MOTIFS by looking at them on the computer while free motion quilting.
Buy yourself a sketchbook and a ream of typing paper and Doodle away!
If you only take one thing from The Inbox Jaunt, let it be:
“If you can doodle it, you can quilt it!”…and it’s corollary–
“If you can’t doodle it, you can’t quilt it!”
The Diva of Doodling,
Lori
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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. Thank you!
Amen, Sista!!!!!!! I lead a fmq workshop a few weeks ago. I only had 3 hours with the gals. To say it was intense would be an understatement!!! The first HOUR was spent with pencil and paper……….it took a few moments to get them ‘in the groove’ but once there they really worked at it! Then we went to the machines. They were amazed/pleased and at the end of the time really felt like so much was accomplished. “Doodling and Doing” go hand-in-hand and must be exercised/done in regular doses (not necessarily long periods of time!). As Victoria Findlay Wolfe says “15 Minutes of Play” and much can be learned!!!!!!
Great minds think alike.
I’m new to fmq and I doodle all the time, it really does make all the difference. I’ve also found that it’s helpful to keep a few doodles on hand when you stitch a design, I could draw spirals, but I couldn’t stitch them, having the doodles there helped me to work out what I was doing differently, and fix the problem.
We just went through the Redwoods on the motorcycles…beautiful! I spent much of the time trying to memorize bow and needle patterns laced together..doodling in my head lol! Since I’m riding and not driving for the first time ever i was looking straight up most of the time..remember that tree pic you took! So cool! And then we’d go around too many curves and I’d get nauseous! Lol!
Totally agree, doodling is key!
Have a great day.
Always, Queenie
Doodling is the best way to give your brain a preview of what you want to stitch out.
The advice about doodling is spot on. You need to have the pattern imprinted in your head before you try to stitch. Thank you for all the inspirational patterns.
The best piece of advice I’ ve been given lately…
Well said, Lori. Anyone can doodle. I wouldn’t quilt anything without drawing it first. Doodling has also become the basis of my quilty “art”, so I am a convert!
I want a book with your designs that I can take with me. Then I can doodle what you’ve sewn. After that, I’m sure I can start coming up with doodles of my own!