Tuesday Tutorial–The Shamrock

Welcome back to Tuesday Tutorials at The Inbox Jaunt. If you are new to The Inbox Jaunt, make sure you check out all the free motion quilting tutorials in the Quilt tab above.   Today’s tutorial is The Shamrock which builds on The Spirals  (to see the spiral tutorials read here and here.)

The following photo shows where we are going:

Begin with a vertical tail (this will be the stem of our clover) and then stitch the basic spiral.  There’s a little trick here…When you get to the center of your spiral, trace back on the OUTside of your spiral.  When you do this, you will end on the OUTside and you will be ready to move UP.

Trace around the outside of your spiral until you are back at the center “stem”.

From here, begin the “top” of the shamrock by stitching another spiral.

Again, spiral to the outside and finish near the center at the “stem”.

Now stitch the final spiral on the left side of the shamrock.  Once you are finished with all three (or four if you are feeling lucky) petals of your shamrock, stitch around the entire motif once or twice.  This neatens up the motif and gives it more shape.  Also, if you want the shamrock larger, you can simply trace around it (echo quilt) several times as I did in the Shamrock Mini Doodle Quilt. (See that quilt here.)

And there you have it!  Easy as key lime pie!  But don’t stop there…four leaves are just as easy as three!