Kaleidoscope Kreator 3

Quilting a kaleidoscope is one of the very best ways to practice machine quilting.

There are a variety of ways to figure out the stitching path and to quilt them.  The variety ends up being infinite.  It’s a great way to figure out how to make the quilting show or have it fade to the background.

When I quilted “Feather Zone” this was the first time I was able to stitch up one side and down the other of the feathers.  With a few more hours of practice I would be able to do this with the muscle memory developed by stitching and stitching and stitching.

Having the shapes printed out like this and making my usual on the fly decisions regarding how I wanted the center spines to look made the process easier.  This is why many quilters like stencils (by hand or on a domestic) and pantos (on a long arm) because the stitching path is clearly defined, being careful to follow the stitching path is essential to an overall well stitched quilt.  One of my students asked me to quilt her Stack & Whack quilt some time ago and I love going back to look at this quilt.  It always makes me happy in part because she was happy with the end result of the quilt.  By stitching the S&W hexagons as though they were kaleidoscope images I had a lot of fun with the quilt.  Each block is quilted uniquely and I was able to use the ditch to easily move from one block to the next.  The butternut/interlocking circles is one of my favorite designs.  I like the effect on the black next to the very straight geometric lines of the hexagons.  I used a chalk powder and a stencil to accomplish that look.

As so often happens in a post I digress.  Last night I installed Kaleidoscope Kreator 3 along with the filigree, Feathers and Snowflakes Template Packs.

It didn’t take long before I uploaded a photo of a the stitching on a recent quilt. With just a simple change of how many wedges are in a particular shape the image changes completely.  The two Kaleidoscope on the right and left of this text are the same section of stitching with a simple change of the number of wedges in the “lace” template.  While they are quite similar there are clear differences.

I took an image of Tilde and started playing with one of the Feather templates.

Printing something like this out the adding machine stitching not only around the feathers but in the feathers, creating more detail is no only a great way to practice quilting but create beautiful one of a kind pieces for gift giving.

Seeing the kaleidoscopes above gets me thinking about how I can figure out how to stitch new shapes leaving negative space here and there.  I can see something like these being printed on card stock and stitched through with an empty needle.  A little chalk powder and a machine stitching template is born.  With the image saved on my computer I have a road map for color placement and knowing where I’d have stops and starts.

The possibilities are just mind boggling.

Happy Quilting!

Teri