There are a variety of ways
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.
It didn’t take long before I uploaded a photo of a the stitching on a recent quilt.
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
Awesome! so much inspiration!
Woo hoo!! I’m loving the kals made from images of your stitching. I can’t wait to see where you take this! 🙂