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

Quilting the Spiral

Most of the spirals I have seen are circular, also called mandalas.  Most of them are placed on a rectangular background.  This results in a lot of negative space in the corners that is crying to be included.  Left alone, the mandala can look lost and cause viewers to lose interest.  There are a ton of ways to decorate the corners, but in this case my feature fabric had such lovely flowers and leaves that I created mini-bouquets in each corner and tied them together with a 1/2 inch border.

I learned the hard way how to quilt a spiral.  A friend suggested that I use wool batting because it "quilts like butter."  So I put the fluffy wool batting into my quilt sandwich and began my quilting.  I soon realized that my quilting designs on the spiral turned it into a flat and fluff mishmash gridded with seam lines.  It looked awful!  In despair I very carefully took out all my quilting and started over.  I couldn't figure out what else to do so I quilted in the ditch of every seam, and it looked wonderful.  I now do that on every spiral quilt, and have discovered that I can do some overlay quilting if I want to, but don't have to.

Quilting plays a critical part in filling up the negative space.  When I made this quilt I was just beginning to venture into Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) and had only done simple stuff.  I was just easing out of the broken needles-shredded thread stage.  I had not educated myself regarding the importance of the right needle, the available threads or the critical need for them to work together.

TIP:  Take time to learn about threads and needles. BTW I am a staunch fan of Superior Threads.  They have excellent quality thread and many opportunities for education.  Subscribe to their newsletter, which always has a funny joke or story, in addition to valuable information, and of course, deals.

You saw this quilt in my post two weeks ago, but here it is again so you can look more critically at the finishing.

Reverie

I was eager to try my hand at feathers, so I gathered my books, pencil, eraser and tracing paper to create a design.  I never thought to look on the Internet for ideas on making my feathers artistic and interesting.  Below, you can see the feather design up close and personal.  That is all there is to it.  I look back and wish I could do something more interesting, but I was already stepping up to a new level.  I did it, my FMQ improved, and I felt really good about it at the time.  It filled the empty spaces.

Reverie Feathers

I was terrified of those feathers.  I knew I couldn't backtrack accurately so I designed the feathers in a way that avoided as much of that skill as possible.  My stitches are not perfectly even, which takes a lot of practice on a domestic sewing machine with no stitch regulator.  I had trouble stopping and starting again without making a jog to the side.  I had fused the appliqué flowers in the corners, but didn't know if I could quilt through the fusible because it was a little stiff.  I bit the bullet and did it anyway.   These challenges improved my FMQ immensely just because I was trying new things.

TIP:  Look at other blogs, show quilts, and Pinterest on ideas for quilting designs.  Go ahead, fly out of your comfort zone.  It is amazing what you can learn to do, but you have to start somewhere.  You will quickly forget your fear.

I am not much of an embellisher, but I went ahead and hand stitched gold Razzle Dazzle thread around the center motif, the spiral itself and the binding.

My quilt went on to win "Best Machine Workmanship" in the 2011 Hoffman Challenge, and has been shown across the country and in Ireland.  It has also been shown in some special exhibits.  I am soooo glad I braved the unknown and stepped into new territory.  Pick up a copy of the Dec/Jan issue of Quilters Newsletter Magazine.  My essay about this quilt is in the column "300 Words."

BTW I am entering this quilt in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival  in the Original Design category
this week.  Voting will be November 1.  You can also click the button on the right sidebar.

Attic Window

I have been very busy lately putting together a family reunion, which will occur next week.  In spite of all the busy work and planning, I still make time to sew.  It is my time to listen to an audio book, feed my creative muse and chill.  In spite of problem solving and occasional disasters, I find sewing restorative so I come out of my cave with my imagination humming and my soul revived.

I have been making 54 very small attic window blocks for a quilt I have been working on for several months.  I previously recommended Kaye Woods method on U-tube for sewing Y-seams, but she is doing tumbling blocks, which have a wider angle.  I had difficulty using her method on my attic windows, which have a 90º angle.  It is still necessary to stitch a Y-seam, but I have a way that turned out consistently accurate blocks, and I want to share that with you.

1.  Cut your fabric on the grain.  This is very important as you will see later.  Cut one end of the side and bottom pieces on a perfect 45º angle (use that ruler - don't guess).  For this small block the orange square will finish to 2 inches.  The side pieces will finish to 3/4 inches wide.

TIP:  I almost always cut my pieces 1/4 inch larger than necessary so I can trim the block to perfection when I am done.  The orange piece is 2" + 1/4"(seam allowance one direction) + 1/4" (seam allowance the other direction) + 1/4" safety margin = 2 3/4 inch cut.  The side pieces are cut 3/4" + 1/4" + 1/4" + 1/4" = 1 1/2 " wide and likewise for the length (i.e. 3/4" extra to cover seam allowance and safety - mine are a bit longer just because they are).  Yes, there is waste.  I call it the "cost of doing business" or "striving for perfection."

2.  Put one side piece, right sides together on the center square.  Line up the sides perfectly.  A tiny 90º triangle corner of the orange will show and its sides will be 1/4 inch.  Once the two pieces are aligned measure 1/4" from each side and mark a line each way making a small cross on the top fabric to show where the needle goes in.

In this photo the fabric slipped slightly for the camera.  Be sure to align the two fabrics exactly before sewing or the 1/4" marking will not be in the right place and your window will be wonky.  Don't worry that the left end doesn't match the end of the orange square.  That is the result of an ultra-generous safety excess and will be trimmed later.

3.  Put the needle down exactly in the center of the cross.  Take one stitch forward, one stitch backward, one stitch forward and sew all the way to the end using a scant 1/4" seam.

TIP:  There is no need to press until all the seams are sewn because they don't interact properly until they are all in place.

4.  Now flip the pointed end back as far as the corner stitch allows without excess tension on the fabric.  Line up the straight edge of the flipped part with the grain of the fabric. Pin it in place.

5.  Place the second side piece on top of the orange square, right sides together.  Line up the straight edges (orange and white) and the 45º angle edges (white and red).  This photo shows the edges so perfectly lined up that you can't see orange and red behind the white except as shadows.  This is the perfection we are striving for.  There is no need to mark the corner this time.

6.  Pin if desired and turn the whole piece over.

7.  Lower the needle right next to the stitching from the first seam or in the same hole if you can.  Stitch forward one stitch, back one stitch, forward one stitch and on to the end.  (It is the camera that makes that first seam look curved because of the folded fabric underneath.  Actually it is nice and straight).

TIP:  Check now to be sure that you did not catch the fold of the lower fabric (red) into your first stitch.  If you did, you must free it and re-stitch or you will have....a wonky window.

8.  Fold the orange square in half diagonally by bringing the lower right corner to meet the upper left corner wrong sides together, edges matching perfectly.  This makes an orange triangle inside the red and white side pieces.  Remove the pin from the red and the two 45º cuts will line up ready for the third seam.  As before, drop the needle at the junction with the previous seam without catching any folds underneath.  Forward, back and forward again, but this time be especially gentle with the fabric.  This is a bias seam and is easily stretched, which will cause.........a wonky window.

9.  Time to press the seams of the window (orange) toward the side pieces and the angled seam open. Everything will lay nice and flat and the seam junction should be a perfect 90º.

10.  Turn the block over, press again just because, and get ready to trim.  A square ruler is the ideal tool.  For this little window I used a 3 1/2 inch square, but they come in several sizes for your convenience.  First the side pieces, which I want to be 3/4" wide + 1/4" seam allowance = 1".  Line up the ruler's 1" lines along both straight seams and match the diagonal line with the angled seam.  Cut off the excess.

TIP:  It pays to take time, sew carefully and match seams perfectly so that everything lines up when the seaming is complete.  It also helps to make a couple of windows from scraps to get the hang of the dreaded Y-seam.  It is not so bad when you do it right.  Practice!

11.  Now to trim the orange window piece.  The square piece needs to be 2" + 1/4" seam allowance = 2 1/4".  Turn the block so you can cut, and lay the 2 1/4" ruler lines along the seam lines being sure that the diagonal is aligned with the corner seam of the side pieces.  Then chop off the excess.  See?  Those funny ends that were too long are gone now.  Believe me, that bit of safety fabric is worth the waste.

Here is the finished block with a perfect Y-seam.  It may seem like a lot of fussiness, but it goes quickly once you know how to do it.  You can also process a lot of blocks in a hurry by chaining them at each step.

No wonky windows on my watch!

My 54 are finished and sewn together.

Medallion and Borders

A medallion quilt is made up of one border after another around a center motif.  You can see my first medallion quilt in an earlier post.  It actually lies flat and straight on a bed, but is hanging wonky in the picture.

Another medallion quilt is my "Lifetime" quilt, and you can refer back my March 12 post for a photo of the quilt's centerpiece Mariner's Compass.  You can follow the building of that quilt in the next few posts as I relive its construction from design to finished quilt.  You may have noticed that I mentioned a narrow, 1/4" border around the center motif.  A tiny, narrow border does not need to be scary if you do it right.

Start by cutting a strip of fabric the appropriate length and 1 inch wide.  That gives you 1/4 inch for the border itself, two 1/4 inch seam allowances, and 1/4 inch extra.

Sew the border strip to the centerpiece with an accurate 1/4 inch seam (see the TIP below).  Press the seam making sure that it is fully ironed so there are no pleats at the seam line.

With the pressed centerpiece and border to your left (for right handed quilters), lay your good ruler with the 1/2 inch line at the seam that connects the centerpiece and border fabrics.  Cut off the excess 1/4 inch with your rotary cutter, and you will have a perfect 1/4 inch seam allowance for attaching to the next piece of fabric.

I use this method for larger borders too.  It gives a measure of safety and keeps the measurements precise.

TIP:  I find a 1/4 inch Edge Stitch foot invaluable for stitching quilt seams.  See the little guide on the right side of the foot?  It rides along the edge of the fabric and allows the needle to sew a perfect 1/4 inch seam.  You will probably need to move your needle to the right, so take the time to measure and find out where the needle needs to be to create the perfect 1/4 inch on your machine.  By moving the needle this foot can be adjusted to sew greater or smaller seams…to a point.  Accurate seams allowances are critical for precise piecing.  Check with your dealer about getting one of these.

1/4 Edge Stitch foot from Husqvarna

If you can't get a foot like this for your machine, you can attach 2-4 layers of narrow masking tape to guide the fabric edge.  There are also numerous seam guides available made by different companies. Many of them adhere temporarily to your machine.