Chris Anders

I have a fan quilt and I am trying to decide how to quilt it. I have never done one of these so I need your help. Do you quilt in the ditch on each fan blade? And then a free motion in the corners?

MadQuilter

Posting a picture would help.

lynnie

I did a small one and did it by hand. I quilted in the ditch of the fan blades.
on top of them a bow with a tiny rose but, in the handled I did another rose bud.
hope this helps.

Chris Anders

Thank you. I was thinking in the ditch to make the blades stand out.

ManiacQuilter2

Depending on the size of the blades, you could also stitch 1/4" inside the edges like a hand quilter would do. Photos do help us give advice.

mama's place

I have the same question. What would you quilt in the space between the curved edge of the fan and the corner of the blocks.? I made my blocks a finished 11 inches because there was sooo much white space to fill. Also to save on my background fabric because I only had a limited amount and could not find more of it. LOL That is why we make scrappy quilts...when you run out of a certain fabric!

joe'smom

There's a great book called 'Quilting Makes the Quilt' by Lee Cleland, in which the author shows a variety of quilts, with about five of each type quilted in different ways. There's a fan quilt among them. It's a wonderful resource for comparing the different effects of different quilting choices. The book was available from my public library, and it was also available used on Amazon at low cost. She stitched the fan blades in the ditch; she put a diagonal grid on the background of one, did the background of another in a complex pattern of lines and squares, did the third using straight lines fanning out from the bottom point of the fan, bisecting each fan blade and filling the box, did a fourth by quilting a flower in the empty corner, and the last one with an overall meander, including the fan. I thought the first three looked beautiful and the last was the least effective.