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Quilters- help me please!
I am looking for some advice on a project that I'd like to finish by free motion quilting. I'm making a grocery cart seat cover for my daughter using this fabric and would like to quilt around the fruit shapes.
What I'm really curious about is if quilting distinct shapes without continuous quilting is possible. What I mean is, I want to quilt around the shape, then end the quilting to move to the next shape, there won't be any quilting to move between shapes. Hopefully you get what I mean.
Tips for how to quilt, the best foot to use on my machine, and how concentrated the quilting should be would be appreciated!
ETA: apparently what I'm looking to do is called outline quilting.
Re: Quilters- help me please!
I can tell you that you need a darning foot for free motion quilting. I just tried free motion for the first time recently too. Your first try will not be perfect., Be sure to pin like crazy to help prevent movement of your layers.
As far as just stitching around the fruit, I don't know about the broken lines but it looks like the shapes are pretty close together in areas so it may be better to use a continuous line. Personally that is what I would do.
What kind of machine do you have?
The most important thing for free motion quilting is that you need to be able to push the feed dogs on your machine down so they don't propel your fabric as you quilt- it should be totally guided by your hands.
As pp said, you need to use a free motion quilting/ darning (they're the same thing) foot.
When I free motion quilt I set my stitch length to be especially short and I tighten my tension half of a number (10%) on my machine. That way, I know that it will be tightly quilted and I'm better able to hold my shapes.
Outline quilting is more laborious because you have to clip the threads between shapes. It is also essential when you to this to make sure you've stitched over the start of your thread around the shape, otherwise it risks coming undone.
Good luck, and if you have any more specific questions I'd be happy to help if I can.
Stand up for something you believe in.
Thank you both for your insight- I was also able to find a bit more info on google once I figured out that it was called outline quilting. I have a Singer Confidence 7470 machine. I haven't done anything without the feed dogs, but I'm almost positive I've seen something about lowering them either on the machine or when I was reading through the user's manual when I first got the machine.
I'd like to see if I can do the shapes individually- keeping in mind that I need to overlap the beginning and the end. I could leave the clipping until the very end and do it all at once rather than messing with it after each shape, couldn't I?
This is probably going to take me a while since my husband it out of town for the next month and I have a 6 month old and a full-time job, but I'll post pics if it isn't too hideous when I'm done. Thanks again!
You could, but depending on how taut your thread is between shapes it has the potential to bunch up. I'd try it and see how it works out for you- because I tighten the tension and use such small stitches when I free motion quilt it'd probably cause puckering on my machine- but everyone's techniques and machines are different.
Stand up for something you believe in.