Today is Tuesday and it is time for another free motion quilting tutorial! Today we will be working on the classic Fleur-de-lis (or lily flower) motif. We have two motifs today: The Basic Fleur-de-lis and The Deluxe Fleur-de-lis.
Let’s start with The Basic Fleur-de-lis.
I always begin with two drawn lines or “rails“. They can be any size that fits your quilt. For this tutorial, the rails were 1 inch apart. Begin in the center of the rails and stitch a right Downward Curl. (Find that tutorial here.) When stitching the curls, make your first curl (the inner curl) small and the outer curl larger:
After you complete the right downward curl, stitch a left downward curl–Use the rails and try to keep your curls within the marked lines—“Stay in the lines. The lines are your friends…”
Next, stitch a “Flame Stitch”. I haven’t posted a tutorial on the Flame Stitch, if anyone would like one, please let me know…
The basic Flame Stitch looks like this:
For The Basic Fleur-de-lis, add a curvy line through the center of the Flame which will allow you to begin at the base of the next fleur-de-lis.
TIP-The Downward Curls and the Flame Stitch all meet near the middle of this motif. Be careful to offset them so that you do not overlap your stitches. When stitches overlap, the quilting gets “thready” which is messy looking.
The Basic Fleur-de-lis:
For The Deluxe Fleur-de-lis, replace the curvy line in The Flame Stitch with two One-Pass Circles. (See the tutorial here.)
After you complete the entire row of this motif, echo-stitch on both sides of the pattern.
The Deluxe Fleur-de-lis:
Tomorrow: It has been raining cats and dogs for the past two days, so tomorrow’s Work in Progress is a small Umbrella quilt.
Next Week’s Tuesday Tutorial: Umbrellas for you!
Thank you to all who continue to pin on Pinterest and re-blog. Our sewing circle gets wider every day–and this week we met hundreds of new readers including many from the Russian Federation. Thank you to http://www.darievna.ru who re-blogged the Easter Egg Tutorial. (I have to find a translator program to read it, but thank you!)
Note: All the photos and tutorials are for personal use only. No commercial use…(I hope to publish a book some day…)
