Exploring with Machine Quilting Session 5: Bringing it all Together

Well, hopefully you've had some fun playing with your flowers, and your feathers, and your leaves, and you've explored some possibilities that you had never explored before. Remember that it's gonna take some practice a lot of practice actually, for you to get really comfortable with all of these things. Whatever it is you felt like you did the best at, practice that one the most in the beginning and when you really feel like you've got it down, then move on to the thing that was the next easiest. And always finished with the thing that was the hardest. This way you have a greater sense of accomplishment when you get there.

One of the things I really wanna push home is, to be careful of where, and when you use these highly ornate, very decorative designs. Try to remember not to overwhelm your pieced quilts with really decorative quilting. And if you really wanna show off your quilting and say, "Hey, look what I've learned to do, it's just so exciting that I can quilt these wonderful things." Consider making a wholecloth quilt. And, that's what all three of these are. I know this quilt doesn't look like it's a wholecloth quilt, but it is, it started out white fabric, and then it was stitched, and then it was colored inside those stitching lines.

And so, these wonderful flowers, and feathers that you see happened from stitch first and then coloring in afterwards. And this wonderful wholecloth quilt is very intriguing because the colors that I used in the thread instead of doing it all one color, like most wholecloth quilts are done, it's actually done with lots of different colors of thread on a black background, and, a white background on the opposite side. So that it's a two-sided quilt which makes it very exciting. And then our final wholecloth quilt was this amazing velvet piece. And we got to see how that velvet responds to stitch so beautifully.

So, consider putting together a nice little wholecloth quilt that shows off your new skill set of making flowers, and feathers, and leaves, and keep on practicing. You're only gonna get better.