Merry Tuesday Quilters! Welcome new followers AND faithful friends! We glad you made it here in time for the Christmas whirlwind of free motion quilting tutorials and fun! With just five weeks until Christmas, we better get started on our holiday projects!
We are going to keep you busy here at The Inbox Jaunt –-I’ve got more than sugarplums dancing in my head! We’ll be working on candy cane striping, pine boughs, snowflakes, ornaments and much more…
Today, we’ll start with the most iconic of Christmas motifs, The Holly Leaf.
Begin by drawing three lines, equidistant apart. In the sample below, the “rails” are one inch apart.
Begin stitching on the center rail. Stitch a curved line up and to the left rail. Make a sharp point and stitch a curved line, finishing again on the left rail.
Stitch a slightly curved line and stop on the center rail.
Stitch the right side of the Holly Leaf
Return to the starting point–but leave a small space as an “escape”–where you can later stitch out of the leaf without stitching over another line.
From the bottom of the leaf, echo back around the Holly Leaf–Do this by stitching on the INSIDE of the leaf.
When you reach the bottom of the leaf, stitch up and through the tip of the leaf to begin the next Holly Leaf in the chain.
When you have completed the entire row of Holly Leaves, stitch back through the center of the leaves and add a few berries and ribbons.
For a beautiful ribbon-effect add spirals as filler around the leaves to fill in the margins. The Spirals are reminiscent of holly berries and give it a very festive look.
A row of Holly Berries would look lovely down the center of a table runner for your Christmas feast or a few leaves would look lovely in the corner of a dinner napkin.
Whether you are stitching on a long arm or on a domestic sewing machine like I do -(I stitch on a Bernina 820 or Bernina 150.) -this pattern is easy–a Beginner Pattern. I stitched this on Kona cotton with Aurifil 50 wt in the bobbin and Sulky 45wt in the top. I used a Schmetz 80 Universal needle.
Check in tomorrow–I have a small project that includes these gorgeous leaves and on Open Line Friday this week we’ll be discussing how to squeeze in a little quilting time during this busy season!
From my workshop to yours,
Lori
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