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However, Swirl Hooks turned out to be my dark horse favorite! They were tricky to figure out at first, and I followed the drawings in the book step-by-step until I had it figured out. I confess that I was dreading this design. Swirls will never be my favorite motif by themselves, but I can see mixing them into an improv quilting design–so I will keep practicing them. I have this problem and reading that section was helpful. And she tackles common issues, like not finishing the swirls, and how if you aren’t careful, then tend to stack on you, which is not as pleasing as a more random placement. The book does a beautiful job of not only showing how to make a swirl, but how to build them into an all-over meander. I have finally figured out how to use the width of my open-toe free-motion foot to help me gauge a consistent space, but I’m still not really happy. It’s a bit of a revelation to me actually, to figure this out. I’m fully focused and (somewhat) relaxed and I’m swirling away when about four swirls in, I start to get a little bored, so I ever-so-slightly start to speed up and things quickly get sloppy (as you can see in the photo above). And texture hides a multitude of quilting missteps.īut that consistent spacing is my problem. This consistency becomes texture in an overall quilt design. The number one tip that I have heard from Angela Walters on quilting swirls (and quilting in general) is to keep the spaces between the lines consistent.
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But they just don’t get any easier for me. I practiced on paper, and this is not my first time around the block with swirls. Angela does a wonderful job of showing you how to form them in a very step-by-step way. And they are deceptively hard! Let’s back up here. This week we are tackling Swirls and Swirl Hooks. I am finding that even 15 minutes really builds skill, and let’s face it, it often ends up being quite a bit more than 15 minutes once I get going. We would love it if you grabbed a copy of the book and spent just 15 minutes a day building up your free motion quilting skills. …and that’s it! Watch the short video above that breaks down the free motion quilting process even more.Here we are on week 2 of the Free Motion Meandering blog hop with fellow quilters and bloggers Jen and Vicki. The loops are also significantly smaller than the hearts to define them as a different shape. In the photo above, you’ll see the hearts all face in different directions. Here are three tips to help you as you create this design:Īs you’ll see in the video above, one of the most important tips is to determine if all your hearts will be the same and shape *as well as* making sure that all your hearts aren’t moving in the same direction. So let’s get started in sewing heart chains, our free motion quilting design for the week. You all know how much I love the Line Designer, so we’ll be breaking it out again today to get some of that muscle memory down before moving to the sewing machine. Today, we’ll be not only adding a secondary shape (loops), but moving in all directions! It sounds so easy, and then you start…and realize it really isn’t as easy as it looks. In the video, we’ll take a look at this surprisingly challenging design! Last week, when we made basic chain hearts, we made row after row of hearts moving in one direction. Our heart longs for the Lord, and our soul finds peace, love, and rest in him. It’s inspired by Song of Solomon 3:4, which says “I have found him whom my soul loves”.
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This week we’ll be making a free motion quilt design called “meandering hearts”.