Did you know that you can free motion quilt on your standard, everyday sewing machine? With only a couple of supplies and this tutorial, you’ll be making beautiful designs to secure and embellish your quilts.
Tips:
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You’ll need a special sewing machine foot called an open toe foot. (Sometimes it’s called a free motion foot or a darning foot.) This one has a clear plastic bottom with a wide opening, so it’s easy to view your stitches. I bought this one new on eBay for about $12. There’s no need to pay extra money for a name-brand foot, as long as your machine is listed as a compatible one.
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You’ll need fabric, of course. If you’d like, you can use scrap fabric to start out, just make sure the top and bottom fabrics are the same type of material. Today I’ll be sewing with this super cute fabric from the Sew Yummy line. You can buy it at my favorite online fabric store, FatQuarterShop.com.
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You’ll also need some batting. (My personal preference for quilting is actually 100% cotton low-loft batting, but this polyester batting works just fine too.)
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You’ll need a basting spray adhesive. While some quilters fuss around with safety pins, I much prefer a spray adhesive. It will save you a great deal of time and frustration, and it’s worth every penny!
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One final recommendation is to consider buying a pair of quilting gloves like Machingers. They have textured fingertips that grip the fabric. They aren’t required, but they make the fabric easier to maneuver.
How to:
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Prep Your Quilt
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Make a quilt sandwich by laying the backing fabric face down, and spraying it with basting adhesive. Add the batting on top.
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Then spray the wrong side of the quilt top and adhere to the center of the batting.
Tip: It’s a smart idea to make your backing and batting larger than your quilt top, as the fabric can gather or shift slightly as you quilt, and this gives you a little extra leeway.
Prep Your Machine
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First, unscrew your current foot and replace it with the open toe foot.
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You’ll need to adjust your tension. This may vary between machines, but mine does best when it’s turned way up.
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Next lower the feed dogs. This is usually a switch located on the back of your machine. This prevents the fabric from automatically feeding through your machine, allowing you to guide the fabric by hand instead.
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Make sure that you have plenty of thread in your bobbin. It really messes up your rhythm when you have to stop and replace it in the middle of your quilting.
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You’ll probably find it easiest to use a medium speed.
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If you happen to have an extension table, that’s useful too.
We’re ready to start quilting! I’ll be demonstrating three basic designs today.
Loops
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I recommend that you always start out by drawing your design on a sheet of paper. After all, free motion quilting is basically just drawing with thread! Practice moving your hand fairly quickly, without ever lifting your pen. Keep drawing until you no longer find yourself hesitating.
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For this design, I’m making a continuous curved line that loops every so often. It’s much simpler to vary the loops rather than trying to keep them a uniform size.
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Some quilters like to start in a corner, some like to start in the center. Personally, I like to start at a corner on most of my small projects, and at the center on my larger ones.
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Be sure to remember to lower the presser foot lever; it’s a little hard to tell when it’s down since there’s no pressure on the fabric, but it will cause your bobbin thread to tangle if you forget.
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Try to keep your hands moving at the same speed as the machine is going. If your machine has a needle-down position option, use it. Look at the back of your quilt every so often to check the tension.
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Take a closer look at your work. Large stitches indicate that your hands are moving faster than the machine. Tiny stitches indicate that your hands are moving too slow. But, minor flaws really aren’t going to be noticeable to anyone but you, so don’t stress about them!
Flames
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This next design is called Flames, and is a series of peaks and valleys. Keep your lines slightly curved, and vary the height to add interest (and hide any little mistakes).2
Move the fabric up and down to make a row of flames, going from left to right.
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When you reach the edge, sew downward and then continue sewing from right to left.
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Try to fill the space nicely by making the flames extend into the empty areas above. If you make a little mistake, just keep going. Remember that others will be viewing your quilt as a whole and not as individual stitches. So relax a little and enjoy the process!
Starry Loops
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I call this last design Starry Loops. It combines the loops from the first design, along with the peaked points of the second. Now, I don’t know if this is a silly flaw unique only to me, but I can’t draw a star backwards. I always have to start at a bottom point and move upward, or else I end up with something unrecognizable. If you happen to share this unlucky trait, it’s okay to only draw a star when your pen is moving upward.
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For this design, I prefer to start in the center, simply because it feels more balanced that way.
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I’m only making stars starting at a bottom point and moving upward, since I’m star-challenged. But it works out just fine. Again, varying the size of the stars will make it easier to fill the space and is simpler than trying to keep the stars uniform.
Finishing
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Once you’re done quilting, you can trim off the excess batting to square your quilt.
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These little quilted scraps don’t have to go to waste, they would make great potholders, placemats, or mug rugs after binding the edges. If you’re interested in learning to bind a quilt with mitered edges and an invisible join, I have a tutorial for that too!
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