calla

I'm into echo at this time, perhaps two rows at each blossom ......calla

madamekelly

It would be great to practice free motion quilting, you could follow the edges of the flowers, exactly, or artistically. Just my thought...

quiltingbuddy

I love madaekelly's idea. It would be a fairly easy challenge for you I bet. It's great to stretch ourselves and learn new things. Have fun with it!

grabba

Thanks so much to those that helped me with ideas for this panel...I worked on it today and now have it ready for binding which will be in a very pretty cream. The wavy lines are far from being perfect waves but I enjoyed doing something new. I have a question: does one use a different foot from the walking foot for trying free motion....have never had lessons in anything but am always interested in learning.....again...thank you so much.....Patty

Carol34446

I agree, follow the flowers and stems and let flowers pop a bit. Lovely pannel.

quiltingbuddy

No you don't use a walking foot for free motion quilting. Usually you drop your feed dogs so there is no tension on the fabric so you can move it around yourself by using your hands to guide it where you want it to go. You either use a special foot for FMQ on your machine or a darning foot. You can refer to your machine's manual, or google it. And there are lots of books and you tube videos out there. It's a world of it's own.

Bree123

For older machines, you use a darning foot. Some of the newer ones actually have something called a Free Motion Quilting foot.

I like the open-toe darning foot. It's easier to see. I also make sure to mark my quilt lines before starting because otherwise I get confused. Plenty of quilters just figure it out as they go along or can sketch their design on paper and remember it. I can't. I learned from Leah Day's free classes. She is a very talented teacher & also offers classes on Crafty for a fee, but why pay when you can get it for free?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nz0QwNv1AA

Note: I did not modify my foot or order from Leah Day. I went to my local sewing machine repair shop & bought the appropriate darning foot for my machine with an open toe.

Here is her 2012 series, which is what I learned from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFcI...1F4B76430BB141

In 2013 she puts several of those quilting techniques together in an original quilt she designed called Express Your Love. That series is also excellent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4UAmannTUo&list=PLNkZhEjxH0nJBtcOZMLgEcJrcUzxr1Opt

In 2014, she paired up with her husband Josh -- a true beginning quilter -- to create a new series on her blog called Building Blocks Quilt Along. Honestly, I found that series to be much more confusing. It combines together piecing and quilting techniques in quilt-as-you-go sampler quilt. I had originally planned to do the quilting with Leah & Josh each week, but was not very excited once I saw the number of weeks that had me quilting in straight lines. There's nothing wrong with straight line quilting & you can do it with a darning foot but I'm not trying to win awards for my quilting yet and would rather just swap in a walking foot than spend hours learning to reproduce the same effect without feed dogs. If you're interested, here's the link to her blog:
http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html

The Dancing Butterfly Quilt Along for 2015 looks much more promising.

Good luck! Free Motion Quilting is really fun & doesn't take that long to start to get good enough that you can begin to incorporate it in your quilts. I think I'd heard it takes 2 hours or so to get enough practice to start stippling & that's probably about how long I practiced. I ended up ripping out a few places on my first quilt after the practice changing pads, but mostly I was really happy with it.

I also learned a lot from Heather Thomas. Here's a link to her beginner video series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLWFmOForjU

Bree123

Ooohh... just zoomed in on your quilt. I love it! Very nicely done!