Good Morning, Everyone! Hope you all enjoyed a busy Columbus Day sailing the high seas of adventure…
I spent the day fighting off a tidal wave of paperwork–Argh! The good news….now I can Quilt without Guilt!
Fortunately, we don’t have to look far to find quilting inspiration these days– The Fall colors are peak here in Minnesota and we’ve had some sunny skies to accompany the glorious color.
Today’s free motion quilt tutorial: The Oak Leaf and The Acorn
The Oak Leaf, like most nature motifs, is very forgiving. Most lines in nature are not perfect nor perfectly symmetrical, so even if your stitching is off a bit, The Oak Leaf will still look fabulous (I promise!).
Begin stitching a short stem. Then add curved petal, followed by a larger curved petal.
Stitch the third petal smaller than the second…
On the top, add a flame-shape.
Repeat the shapes on the other side. Don’t worry about perfect mirror images…anything close will look great.
Stitch a curvy stem through the middle of the leaf and echo stitch back out of the bottom of the leaf. Add a small curl to serve as the top of the acorn.
Stitch out of the curl and then stitch a bean-shape with a point at the top.
The acorn: bean shape with a point at the top…then echo stitch over the left side of the cap of the acorn.
Stitch a wavy line inside the cap of the acorn from left to right.
Finally, stitch down to a point and back up to the cap.
If you like, add a few contour lines inside The Acorn– though it is not necessary. Also, echo-stitching around each Oak Leaf gives the pattern a little more “oomph”–for lack of a better word.
This pattern can be use as a border or as an overall fill pattern.
I am working on a small quilt using The Oak Leaf and Acorn and should have it ready for you to see next week.
In the mean time, give this pattern a try on YOUR next quilt–no need to squirrel it away–there’s plenty more tutorials coming every week!
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE:
For some colorful inspiration and a photography trick for great tree photos, you might also like The Glorious Colors of Autum.
Also, other free motion quilt tutorials for fall that you might like:
- Braided Wheat-A Free Motion Quilt Tutorial
- The Perfect Pumpkin a Free Motion Quilt Tutorial
- The Spider Web
Signed,
Nuts-About-Free Motion Quilting,
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!
