Tips for Custom Quilting

January 21, 2021

Today’s Topic:  Tips for Custom Quilting

Welcome to Week Twenty Five of 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.

Join the private Quilting with LKQ Facebook Group HERE

Good Morning, Quilters!

Welcome to the last chapter of 25 Days to Better Machine Quilting–Custom Quilting.

(Don’t worry, there’s a lot more quilting to come!  My original book title was 30 Days to Better Machine Quilting–Five chapters remain on the editor’s cutting table–so there’s more to come here at LKQ!)

Become a Better Machine Quilter in One Hour!

Please Join me  this Saturday!!!

The very popular quilt show, the Road to California will be virtual this year–The Road at Home!

I will be presenting a virtual trunk show, Easy Machine Quilting on Saturday, January 23 at 10 am PST. (12 CST).  The trunk show includes tips and techniques on thread, batting, quilt design, machine set up and motifs!  Quilting is easy when you learn the four essential skills!

LOTS of photos!

I would love to see YOU there!

Road to California/Road at Home

Easy Machine Quilting-Lori Kennedy 

(IMPORTANT NOTE-You must create an account before you can sign up for classes.)

First Quilting Choice

Once your quilt top is sandwiched, you first decision is whether to do an overall motif–one motif over the entire quilt, or custom quilting.  For custom quilting, you will need to choose a variety of motifs and threads to enhance the quilt top.

Tips for Custom Quilting
Keep it simple

First and foremost-custom quilting does not need to be complicated!  Don’t overcomplicate it in your head. (I have this tendency!)

Custom quilting isn’t harder to quilt than allover quilting, though it does take a little more time to plan and design.

Center and Melon Sections, one motif, two ways
Design by Section:

The first thing to do is to break the quilt down into design sections.  A design section is a row or block or border that has similar piecing or applique.

For example, in the row quilt below there are four design sections:

  1. Center row of flying geese
  2. Four rows of solid sashing
  3. Two rows of squares
  4. Half square triangle rows

For each section, choose one motif and one thread.

Repeat and Vary Motifs

Review motif books like Free Motion Machine Quilting 1-2-3 and More Free Motion Machine Quilting 1-2-3 to choose a few potential motifs.

Keep the overall design simple by limiting the number of motifs used to two or three. For example,  in the last project, we used three motifs to fill an entire quilt.

In the wedding quilt I did for my daughter, I used only two motifs–and I varied the motif to fit the shapes.

Audition Motifs

Use a vinyl overlay to audition a few motifs.  Evaluate scale and spacing.  Try more than one idea. Stretch your imagination while trying new motifs.  Our first idea isn’t always our best idea!

Design one section at a time

It is not necessary to design the entire quilt at one time–especially if you’re a beginner.  Design and stitch a section and let that guide the motif and thread choices in the adjacent sections.

Designing in stages makes the process far less overwhelming!

Stitch the Section

Once you’ve chosen a motif and auditioned it–stitch the entire section.  In other words, if the design section consists of several  solid rows,  quilt all the rows before moving on to the next design.  This is the most efficient way to quilt-as you don’t have to change thread, and it is the best way to ensure consistency of the motifs within the quilt.

Step by step

One of the biggest challenges for quilters is being overwhelmed by The Big Quilt.  Break the process into smaller sections and working through the process step-by-step.  You don’t need to climb a mountain, you only need to walk up five steps at a time. (Or as a wise lady told me recently, you don’t need to do 20 burpees, you only need to do 4 burpees–five times-LOL!)

Enjoy the Process

Machine quilting a large quilt takes time.  Nothing ruins the enjoyment more than rushing.  Slow down and enjoy the process!

Choose fun motifs, thread you love and colors you adore.  Quilting should be fun!

Are we having fun yet?

What about YOU?

Do YOU enjoy the quilting process?

Are you likely to rush the quilting step of quilt making?

What new motif will you try on your next quilt?

We’d LOVE to hear!

Happy Quilting,

Lori

Trunk Show

 

PS…All tutorials, images and information are the property of Lori Kennedy Quilts 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!

Visit my Etsy shop: LoriKennedyShop for all of my books!  They are ALL bestsellers!

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9 comments

  • Marta

    Thank you. we stood in faith the virus would not do permanent damage. And she did me the honor of loving the quilt and shoulder burp pads ! Have you ever done FMQ on a burp pad? Fun!

  • Sandra Robertson

    I’m quilting a 90”x93”. I’m doing it as above- centre first then each border. My motto through this is “ you eat an elephant 1 bite at a time”!🤣

    • Marta

      Needed this advice…sewing room and guest room are a mess since Holidays ! I just didn’t clean up as I went as I usually do. Our great grandson was born the 14th and I finished his quilt just 2 days before. Mom and baby are fine after she had had covid during her 4th month. So clean up my spaces now? one bite at a time like the proverbial elephant.! Thank you!

      • A

        Little by little. So glad to hear your granddaughter and great grandson are well. Must have been scary with Covid!

    • A

      Lol!! Love that!

  • vivian383

    This is quite interesting. I am currently quilting a king size Giant Dahlia Quilt . I have done the center, and moved on to the body of the quilt. Then there are 2 rows of straight borders, a wide plain border, then an elaborate pieced border. Would you suggest that I keep going around the quilt in order to do all the borders individually?

    • A

      I would complete one border at a time. No thread changes and you’ll get into a rhythm with your quilting. Of course this is not a hard and fast rule-just a suggested guideline.

  • Glenda

    Thanks for the tip to break it down. And not try to do it all at one sitting.

  • Jeanie Bassett

    So glad i got this email and opened it this morning! I am about to start quilting a quilt & after doodling designs, was going to start quilting 1 block at a time this morning. Now I will go through and quilt the background of each block as the blocks are all the same design, same background, but different colors in the pattern. This will help with stabilizing the quilt and stop all the thread changes.

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