Free-Motion Quilting Tips and Techniques

Free-motion quilting is a great skill to add to your quilting abilities. Heather Thomas shares three great free-motion quilting tips that you should know, including how to knot off at the beginning and end of a line of stitching, how to travel between areas of quilting without having to cut your thread, and how to remedy broken thread or running out of bobbin thread.

Knot Off

An important free-motion quilting tip to learn is knotting off. This is a skill that is required at the beginning and end of a line of quilting to ensure that it does not unravel as the quilt is used or laundered. While you can tie your threads by hand, either as you go or once you finish a project, Heather shares a much quicker and easier way to do it by machine. She demonstrates how she pulls the bobbin thread through to the surface of the quilt, how to securely hold the bobbin and needle thread together, and then how to make several small stitches very close together to secure the thread. She shows how to do this when you first begin quilting and then how to do it again when you finish.

Traveling and Fixing Broken Thread

Other great free-motion quilting tips to know are how to travel from one area to another and how to fix broken threads or running out of bobbin. Heather demonstrates how to do both of these techniques. Heather shows these free-motion quilting tips while doing a simple meandering free-motion stitch; however, all of these tips can be used no matter what kind of free-motion quilting you are doing—including free-motion quilting using circles and squares. Once you master these free-motion quilting tips, learn more by visiting our library full of quilting tips and techniques.