Summer 2021 Mini Quilt Challenge: Free Motion Quilting

Hello Friends and Welcome!

Week nine of the Summer 2021 Mini Quilt Challenge has come to an end, and with its passing, another mini quilt has been completed!

The prompt for this week was free motion quilting! Free motion is a free form style of quilting, where the project can be moved in any direction to create a variety of quilted designs, ranging in difficulty, detail, and aesthetic.

Before we get started, I feel I should note that I have done some free motion research before. Back in the spring I was hoping to add a new quilting pattern to my repertoire; pebbles! Pebbles is an interesting and detailed looking pattern that uses circles in a variety of sizes to fill a space. I thought it could be really interesting to incorporate it into some straight line designs as a contrast!

With all the projects I was working on at the time, I found that I wasn't able to practice free motion quilting as much as I should have, and I set it aside. You can check out my first attempt at the pebbles motif in my 11 March Project Update if you're interested!

For now Friends, let's move on to my more recent research and experimentation with free motion quilting!

Free Motion Quilting Research

Free motion quilting (FMQ) is a style of machine quilting that involves dropping or otherwise disabling the machine's feed dogs so that the quilt can be moved in any direction. This directional freedom allows free motion quilters to create a variety of beautiful and unique custom quilting designs!

Many designs that are too complex for straight line quilting are quilted quite simply using the free motion method. The ability to move the quilt in any direction is a huge advantage over walking foot quilting since you won't need to worry about rotating a large or bulky quilt through a domestic machine.

Beginning and ending a line of quilting is very much like straight line quilting; place the needle in the starting position, take a few stationary stitches to secure the thread, then start quilting! When you're finished with a line of quilting, take a few more stationary stitches before cutting your thread. Thread ends can be buried in the layers of the quilt or clipped close to the quilt's surface, depending on how secure you prefer your ends to be.

Tools for Free Motion Quilting

Before you can start quilting, you'll need to assemble a few supplies. These will make free motion quilting not only possible, but could help to improve the look of your quilting!

Free Motion Foot: also known as a darning foot, a free motion quilting foot is designed to make free motion quilting as easy as possible. There are several different styles of FMQ feet: made from metal or plastic, open or closed toe, hopping or hovering.

With such a wide variety to choose from, foot selection comes down to an individual's preference. Some quilters find that open toed feet catch on the fabric, making quilting difficult, while others believe closed toed feet don't offer enough visibility for neat quilting.

Not all machines are made the same, so when purchasing a new machine foot, it is best to buy directly from your machine's manufacturer. This will ensure that the foot fits properly and won't inadvertently damage your machine!

Gloves: wearing quilting gloves can really improve the finished look of any quilted motif. The gloves help the quilter to maintain a better grip on the quilt, reducing tension in the shoulders and fingers. To prevent the risk of colour transfer onto the quilt top, quilting gloves are generally made of white cotton.

Supreme Slider: to reduce friction between your sewing machine and quilt, many quilters recommend using a supreme slider. This product is essentially just a non-stick, plastic sheet that is placed on the sewing machine bed, between the quilt and the machine. A hole is cut through the middle, allowing space for the needle to go through the quilt without sewing it to the supreme slider.

This tool is also very useful for covering the machine feed dogs. While most modern machines allow the user to disable the feed dogs, some older machines may not be able to; covering them with a supreme slider is an effective way of blocking the feed dogs from grabbing the quilt, allowing the user to practice free motion quilting.

Though I haven't tested it myself, I suspect a similar effect could be achieved by taping wax paper or an acetate sheet over the machine bed. Just remember to cut a hole for the needle!

While a free motion foot is an essential tool, the others are simply helpful aids. Experiment with different combinations of tools to figure out what works best for you!

Free Motion Practice

Throughout all of my research, the most common tip was that free motion quilting requires a lot of practice. This will help you to develop the muscle memory needed for certain designs and allow your brain to practice following patterns.

Before even sitting down at a machine, practice free motion motifs with a pen and paper. By drawing out the design with a single, continuous line, you can help train your brain to understand how the pattern works and when to expect turns and curves.

You can start by duplicating patterns seen online or on quilts in your home, or challenge yourself by designing your own quilting motif!

Once you have a comfortable grasp of how to draw the quilting design, start practising it on the machine using scraps of batting and fabric from past projects. Cut a 10" square each of backing fabric, batting, and front fabric, layer them, baste as desired, and you're ready to quilt!

When practising, it's really helpful to see your stitching clearly. Using a non-busy print or solid fabric, paired with a high contrast thread colour will give you the best visibility. If you can see your stitching clearly, it's easy to tell if your tension is set properly, stitch length is consistent, and that your lines are actually where you want them to be.

Tips for Free Motion Quilting

A few final tips before moving onto this week’s mini quilt:

Leave several inches of batting and backing around the quilt edges. Having lots of fabric beyond the area of the actual quilt top will give you more to hold onto, with more to hold onto, your control will improve.

I can attest to this. I didn’t leave myself a lot of fabric around the edges while quilting my mini quilt, and quilting around the edges of the piece was a lot more challenging than quilting the middle where I had the whole quilt to hold onto.

Always set your machine to the same stitch length. Stitch length affects the needle speed, if you are using a different stitch length every time you work on free motion quilting, it will throw off your ability to move the fabric at the right speed. I’ve seen a stitch length of 0 recommended, which is what I used for my project.

Check Tension Frequently. Every time you turn your machine off and back on again, test your tension. Look closely over both the back and front of your test piece before committing to quilting your actual quilt. If your tension has somehow changed while you were away, it’s much more convenient to ruin a test square than to rip out several lines of quilting from your project.

If you do find yourself needing to rip out quilting, do so from the back side of the quilt. If your seam ripper accidentally catches part of the backing fabric, it will be an easier, less obvious mend on the backing than on the quilt front.

Get lots of practice. I've already covered this, but based on my research, it can’t be overstated. Practice will help you improve. Doing as little as one or two test squares every week will help build confidence and skill, improving your quilting slowly over time!

Making the Mini

I was inspired to embrace free motion quilting as my prompt for this week as a way to prepare to quilt more of the blocks for the National Quilt Museum's 2021 Block of the Month project. You can read more about that on their website.

Specifically, I've been putting off quilting my Firework block, the original pattern was designed by Christina Cameli. I pieced the block in March, so I should have had lots of time to quilt it by now.

Based on Christina's original block from the instructions, I decided to use this pattern for quilting my block. The different colours indicate the three different quilting patterns: the orange and pink will be done using free motion, and the blue pattern will be hand quilted.

To practice these wedge shaped motifs, I needed a mini quilt that also features wedges. But, because free motion quilting is the prompt for the week, I want the piecing to be minimalistic so the quilting will stand out.

The design I settled on involves a lot of bias seams, so I thought the best way to deal with that was to use foundation paper piecing. I've worked with this technique a few times before, so I didn't do any additional research for this.

I wanted a bit of a different shape than my past mini quilts, so I extended the design to be a much longer rectangle, before moving on to colour selection!

For the wedges themselves, I decided on a light colour, knowing that the texture of the quilting would show up best on a light background. For the zigzag ribbon down the middle, I struggled to choose a single colour, opting instead to use a rainbow!

With fabric picked out, I could start piecing!

Foundation paper piecing involves sewing the fabric patches together by sewing through both the fabric and the paper, following lines marked on the paper as a guide. Once a seam has been sewn, the fabric is pressed into place, then the next patch is sewn on, again sewing through both fabric and paper, following the guidelines.

I followed this process down the pattern, starting with pink and moving through the rainbow, ending with violet.

Once piecing was complete, I squared off the quilt, measuring about ½" away from the outer edge of the paper guide. I wanted this extra fabric to help me hold onto the quilt during quilting, and to account for any shrinking.

Before I could baste the layers of my quilt, I needed to remove the paper guide from the back side of the quilt top. This is done quite simply by tearing away the paper and discarding it.

To quilt the mini project, I wanted to use three alternating motifs; the two FMQ motifs from the Firework quilting diagram, plus a third one that I think looks like an elongated lotus blossom.

I quilted each of these one at a time down the length of the quilt, practising on a separate tester quilt sandwich between each motif.

To finish the mini, I squared it up a final time and finished the edges with facings.

VA, Free Motion Quilted Mini Quilt, 2021, 5¼" x 22", cotton fabric and thread, poly-cotton batting.

When I originally finished it, I was a little frustrated and unhappy with my quilting; stitch spacing is inconsistent, the travelling lines don't completely overlap, and some of my lines are a little wobbly. But then I took a little time to put this project into perspective. This is my second ever attempt at free motion quilting. Not only that, it is also my first attempt on an actual quilt!

With a little bit of practice, I know I'll be able to do a lot better! I’ll definitely be looking into this again in the future!

All things considered, Friends, I am thrilled with the outcome of this mini quilt!

If you’d like to experiment with a new quilt making technique, I recommend making a mini quilt of your own! Check out the Summer 2021 Mini Quilt Challenge Announcement post for some inspiration! You can find all the guidelines and prompts I’m following in that post, but feel free to let your own goals and prompts guide you!

If you do make a mini quilt, I would love to have you share photos and stories in the comments below! You can also share on social media, be sure to use #summer2021miniquilts so I can find your post! I’ll be using that tag to share progress on my own mini quilts on Instagram, you can find me @vafibrearts!

We are now coming up to week ten of this Challenge, that means only three more mini quilts before the summer wraps up! For next week’s prompt, I’ve chosen Hand Finished Binding, specifically I’d like to explore binding non-square shapes, like hexagons, using the double fold method.

I’m so excited for more experimentation next week! I would love for you to come visit me again to see what I get up to!