How to Practice FMQ

How do you learn and continue to improve your free motion quilting?  Every teacher, every book, every online tutorial has thoughts on this process so this post reflects my own journey.  When you sit down at the machine for the first time you'll find that the quilting foot doesn't hold the fabric down,  the foot pedal wants to send the machine into outer space, your eye doesn't know what to look at, your hands are helpless, and the quilt bulk is totally unmanageable.  At least that is the way I felt.

1.  CHALLENGE:  Back and neck get stiff and sore.
CAUSE:  Poor posture.  Chair and machine don't meld to maintain good posture.
SOLUTION:  Get a good chair.  Plant your feet flat on the floor with thighs parallel to said floor.  Forearms parallel to the floor from elbow to sewing table.  Sit straight.  I found it helpful to get an unstable cushion (yoga cushion).  It takes some getting used to, but will strengthen your back and help you sit straight.

2.  CHALLENGE:  Body and brain tension.
CAUSE:  FMQ is intense because there is a lot to think about to get it right.
SOLUTION:  Take periodic breaks, walk around and stretch.  Drink water.  You will learn to relax as you do more FMQ.

3.  CHALLENGE:  Quilting doesn't look like the planned design.
CAUSE:  Inexperience.  Design may be too difficult at this stage.
SOLUTION:  Practice your design with paper and pencil before sewing.  This helps build muscle memory and eye-hand coordination.  It really works!  Doodle.  Doodle with the sewing machine.

4.  CHALLENGE:  I don't know what designs are best to learn with.
CAUSE:  Inexperience
SOLUTION:  Draw, then quilt some loops like the letter "e" and start with those.  Medium size is best for learning.  Keep practicing with any letter of the alphabet - it is OK to backtrack.  In fact that is a useful skill.  Look at books and online tutorials.  Leah Day has over 400 quilting motifs and has arranged them so that you can find the ones for your level of expertise.  She has short videos with each of them.  Practice on them.

5.  CHALLENGE:  I don't want to ruin my quilt with my imperfect skills.
CAUSE:  Lack of experience and practice.
SOLUTION:  Make at least a dozen 12-inch square sandwiches of fabric-batting-fabric.  I used muslin that I had, but you can raid your stash, buy fat quarters or whatever.  Pin the sandwiches together so they are ready when the mood strikes, or for daily practice sessions.

6. CHALLENGE:  My needle has a mind of it's own and doesn't always obey.
CAUSE:  Inexperience.
SOLUTION:  Keep your eye about 1/4 inch in front of the needle and it will follow.  Amazing, but true!  There is some kind of mystic connection between the eye, the hands and the needle.  Don't try to move your hands at the same time you are moving the fabric under the needle.  Stop, rearrange and start again.

7.  CHALLENGE:  My hands and feet don't coordinate.
CAUSE:  It takes some getting used to.  Sometimes your foot makes the machine go when you are not ready and that can cause havoc.  Sometimes the puppy steps on the foot pedal - urrghhhhh!
SOLUTION:  Work on keeping the machine going at a steady speed.  Listen to the machine.  You can hear when you are getting irregular.  Take your foot all the way off the pedal when you stop and don't put it back until you and your hands are ready to stitch.  It is not cool to stitch a finger.

8.  CHALLENGE:  After stopping then starting again the needle jogs off to the side.
CAUSE:  The fabric is pulling.
SOLUTION:  This is tricky because it is hard to get started along the same line again without a jog when the weight of the quilt is not supported.  Arrange the fabric in a nest around the machine so that you have complete control of the portion around the needle.  Bring the needle up then move it down almost to the fabric by hand so you are sure it will land in the right place.  Do a stitch in the same hole where you stopped, then start slowly as you move the fabric carefully.  You have to hold the fabric very steady as you start.  Practice this regularly on your little squares, but realize that managing a big quilt will be a bit more difficult...but you can do it.

9.  CHALLENGE:  Stitching in the ditch to anchor the quilt.
CAUSE:  It is intense and difficult to stay in the ditch.  It just is!
SOLUTION:  Stitch two inch squares together into a 12 inch "quilt," batting and all.  Practice sewing right in the ditch.  Be careful at intersections where the seam allowance may be switching to the opposite side.  When done correctly the thread will bury into the seam and be essentially invisible.

TIP:  I'd rather stay positive, but I must warn you about a couple of things.  Stippling is one of the hardest stitches to master.  Straight lines are also hard to manage until you have more control.  These are important to learn, but not critical at first so get your feet wet with easier designs.

When you feel reasonably confident with the alphabet, look at some books with patterns.  Most quilting books have some ideas and there are designs all over the Internet.  Before you know it you will gain competence with eye-hand-foot coordination and will notice that you can follow a line.  When I was finally able to follow a line exactly, I realized I could do just about anything with a needle and quilt.

TIP:  I found it great fun to quilt on medium to large floral fabric, following the edges of the flowers and leaves.  It great for beginners because the occasional misplaced stitches are not obvious.  Looks pretty too.

What are my recommended goals at this stage of the game?
*Maintain good posture.
*Strive for a regular, steady speed with the machine.  Some people go fast, some slow.  Some
machines have the option of a slow, set speed.  Decide what works for you.
*Aim for stitches that are all the same length.  No one is perfect, but it is an admirable goal.
*Keep your eye ahead of the needle.
*Learn to stop and start in the same place without the needle going off to the side.
*Draw designs.  Doodle.  Practice 15 to 20 minutes each day on the machine.
*Have fun with it.

TIP:  You learn to quilt by quilting.  With some practice under your belt go ahead and quilt your quilt.  Most people won't even notice the imperfections.  I promise you will get better with each quilt.

Here is one of my early quilts.  I tried my hand at FMQ and thought it looked so awful that I ripped out ALL the quilting and started over.  That is probably not the best way to practice quilting, but when I went back to it, I did a much better job.  I did simple, large flower petals in the plain areas and followed the border design in the fancy spots.  You really can't see the quilting in the border areas.  That is real advantage on this quilt!  I got a lot of practice doing this, and you know what?  The quilt is not ruined!

Crossings

Some Thoughts about FMQ

I can't remember when I started FMQ (free motion quilting), but at some point I decided I was going to have learn.

       My fingers refused to cooperate when quilting by hand.  

       Quilting by hand takes too long.  

       Having someone else quilt for me is too expensive.

       I don't want someone else to finish the quilt I have created.

In order to start the learning process I took a class at the local sewing machine store.  I was told that I had to sew fast.  Every time the teacher came by my table she said, "Speed up, you are going too slowly."  When I speeded up I immediately lost control.  It was like my running:  if I run too fast I fall flat on my face.  What did I get out of that class?  Discouragement, a mess on the fabric, and a fierce determination to quilt only straight lines with my walking foot.  

    

Walking Foot Quilting

The walking foot quilting looked fine and was easy, but terribly boring.  I really needed to tackle FMQ again.  I had the opportunity to take a beginner's class with Harriet Hargrave, the lovely lady who began the FMQ movement many years ago.  She was a rebel, but persisted and taught others her craft.  Her philosophy is that you can go any speed you want as long as you keep the machine running at the same, regular pace...your pace.  Ah, that fit so much better with my psyche.

Now I was on my way.  All I had to do was:

       *Keep my foot steady on the pedal.  Riiiight!

       *Use my hands to move the quilt through the machine in such a way that the stitches were all the same length.  Riiiight!!  (It helped to discover that my machine has a slow speed button.)

       *Keep my eye ahead of the needle.  I was promised that my hands and needle would follow. Riiiight!!!

       *Manage the bulk of the quilt so it doesn't pull, doesn't hang up on a corner somewhere, doesn't fall off the machine, and goes through the harp neatly and smoothly.  Riiiight!!!!

       *Prevent needle breakage and thread shredding.  Riiiight!!!!!

       *Somehow do all the quilting without ever stopping because when restarting, the needle created an unsightly jog off onto a new trail of its own choosing.

...and so it went for awhile.

Early FMQ

The quilt above fits a double bed, and the quilting is all FMQ on my domestic machine.  I spent half my time changing broken needles and broken thread.  The other half of my time I was manhandling the quilt trying to maintain some control.  There wasn't much time left for sewing.  The stitches were not terribly even, and the quilting didn't follow my imaginary lines.  I hadn't marked my design because I was not able to follow the lines anyway.  I finally finished, was happy to be done, and learned a great deal about how to manage the process.  Although not exquisitely beautiful, it is functional, I did it, I got a little bit better.

TIP:  Be gentle on yourself.  I know you would like to be another Leah Day or Diane Gaudynski, but give yourself time.  Don't quit.  You'll never improve unless you practice, practice, practice.  Watch tutorials.  Read books.  Practice, practice practice.  Concert pianists didn't become professionals by sitting on the couch wishing for music technique to be assimilated by osmosis.

       

Does all this sound familiar?  Please don't get discouraged.  I caught on and you can too.  Tune in next week and I will share with you the things that have most helped me become a better FMQer.

TIP:  Did I mention that PRACTICE is the single most important ingredient in learning to FMQ?  

Little Crystal

If you are wondering why I am going back to my quilting beginnings I will give you two reasons.  One:  it is a good place to start my new blog.  Two:  I want you beginners to see that we all start at the bottom of the learning curve.  There is a lot to learn in quilting:  sewing, buying the right fabric, appraising values, organizing, measuring, putting it all together straight, quilting, and finishing it beautifully.  It takes time to learn the basics.  It takes time to achieve confidence.  Some of us have been sewing since childhood. Some have a natural talent for putting colors together.  Some have taken art classes, graphics classes, textile classes and more.  Others start from scratch.  The one thing we all have in common is that we like to sew and we like to create beautiful things.  That is my soap box for today.

Today's featured quilt is a little gem from a pattern called "Crystal" by Jinny Beyer, printed in "Quilts with Style" magazine in June 2004.  Using patterns is a great way to learn new techniques.  I had done some paper piecing, but this one was a challenging learning experience.  It is only 16 1/2" x 16 1/2" so the pieces are very small.  I don't think it could be done in any other way.  I discovered late in the process that one little piece was a tad bit too short and a tiny edge poked out, but it would be crazy to undo everything to get to it.  I left it as is because it was such a small imperfection and not really noticeable.  I was not into showing quilts yet and it will never be heavily used so it remains defective.  I will always know it is there, somewhere.  I am fussier now.

TIP:  When paper piecing be sure that the fabric covers the required area completely with seam allowance as necessary…as you go.

TIP:  Be sure to press the seam every time you stitch and press it all the way back away from the stitched join. I use Sulky Paper Solvy for the foundation, but if you have a lot of seams to press it gets scorched and brittle from the iron.  I now use the Hera Marker to do "finger pressing."  I find I do a better job of getting the fabric tightly pressed and I don't burn the paper or my fingers.  A toothbrush back also works.

This little quilt is quilted with the simplest looking, but a difficult type of quilting:  stitch-in-the-ditch.  It is good for a beginner to learn because while the foot helps maintain control, the eye must develop the ability to make sure the needle goes down in the right place.  Poorly done, it will show, but not nicely.  Well done, it will be invisible.