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2025 Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Series

Beginner Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Lesson 7 – Quilting Borders with 3 Simple Designs

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I am so happy that spring has pretty much sprung here in NW PA, at least for right now, anyway! Last week the weather was simply gorgeous and after a day of cold temps, we’ve bounced back into spring. Today will be in the 70’s! For me, I know that spring is finally here when I fall asleep listening to the peepers. The robins, red- winged blackbirds, and grackles are back, too. When do you know it’s spring in your neck of the woods?

This week we are wrapping up our Beginner Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) series with some ideas for quilting borders. I’ll let you in on a little secret of mine – when I’m rushed for time, I use an allover design for the entire quilt, but when I have some extra time or if a quilt just needs it, I use a different design in the border. Let’s jump right in, there’s a lot to cover today.

If you missed any FMQ lessons, you can find them here:

Lesson 1: All the Background Information

Lesson 2: Let’s Doodle!

Lesson 3: Practice, Practice, Practice

Lesson 4: The Write Way to Doodle!

Lesson 5: Going Beyond Loops Part 1

Lesson 6: Gong Beyond Loops Part 2

Quilting Borders with 3 Simple Designs

I’m going to share with you 3 of my favorite go-to border designs along with variations of each to spark your creativity and to help you expand your FMQ toolbox of designs.

The hardest part of quilting borders, in my humble opinion, is making the transition around the corners. Usually, I add some kind of element in the corners to connect my border designs, but sometimes a design lends itself to bending around the corner without needing an element. Below, I’m going to show you both styles.

Zig Zags

Zig Zags are a SUPER border option when you’re just getting started with FMQ. It is a base design you can add to as your skills grow.

Here’s a good example of the basic Zig Zag design. You can see in the corner, I did an inverted triangle, which fills the space nicely and is a nice transition. The Zig Zag design is a very flexible design that can be sized to the width of the border strips – make it narrow for inner borders or wide for outer borders. You can even use it for sashings!

Above is the Zig Zag design doodled on my white board with my trusty dry erase marker. Easy piezy. Really.

If you’re not a fan of the inverted corner triangle, try some of your own ideas in the corners. Doodle, doodle, doodle.

Then when it’s easy for you to draw, it’s time to make a fresh practice square and practice quilting the Zig Zag design until you feel comfortable with it. Finally, take a deep breath and quilt it on a small project.

It might not be perfect, but that’s okay. Pat yourself on the back. It takes courage to do something new. I want you to remember there is no such thing as perfect. A finished quilt is a lot more satisfying than trying to find perfection and never finishing that project. YOU CAN DO IT!

Now let’s look at some variations of the Zig Zag border design. The following designs were created by quilting the border once and then going back and adding a second layer of quilting. The red line is the first quilting line and the blue line is the second quilting line in my doodles below.

PSST! One of the biggest secrets to quilting borders is that you don’t have to create the design in only one pass. Breaking a design into multiple passes can make a real jaw-dropping finished border design and you’ll be the only one who knows how simple it is, so don’t tell anyone, okay?!?

Double Zig Zag

Double Zig Zag is simply quilting the basic Zig Zag design and then echoing another line either above or below the original Zig Zag. Depending on what you put in the corners, you might have to make a different transition than the one I used.

Mirror Image Diamonds

In this variation, I quilted the basic Zig Zag design and then with my second pass, I quilted the mirror image to make Diamonds. Again, depending on your corner element, you might have to come up with your own transition.

Argyle

Here I overlapped 2 lines of Zig Zags, off-setting the second Zig Zag about a half a Zig Zag so that the points are opposite of each other.

Trees

I LOVE this design! So many ways to use it. The first pass is the basic Zig Zag design – just make sure to leave enough space at the inside edges of the border so you have room for your second quilting pass with the trunks. I drew over my corner inverted triangle on the second pass and made it into an outward-facing tree. SEW cute!

I’m going to stop making Zig Zag variations right now or else I’ll never get to show you the 2 other designs! Have fun creating your own variations. I warm you though, it can be addictive. LOL!

Hillside

I’m calling our 2nd border design Hillside. It’s a lot like Zig Zag, but with curves instead of points. This design can also be used as an allover design and it lends itself to lots of variations. Yay!

I’m sorry if the example above might be a little hard to see because of the blue backing fabric, but I think you can still make out the Hillside design.

You’ll notice I quilted a teardrop shape in the corner, but you can place any element you want in your corners, or omit corner elements entirely. Be creative, make this design your own.

Here’s my Hillside doodle on my white board. Fun, huh? I really like using this design because curves can be very forgiving.

On the following Hillside variations, please note that the red line is my first quilting pass and the blue line is my second pass.

Grab your white board and doodle along with me!

Hillside Fans

This version is a very simplified Baptist Fan. Like the Zig Zag design, you can size this design for any width of border. If it’s a really wide border, you can quilt multiple passes of the Hillside design to fill the space. In this version, I moved over half a Hillside to offset the second row. I also opted to skip the corner element and simply quilted a big Hillside arc in the corner. Snazzy!

Hillside Echo

Here is Hillside with an echo. This design has a great vibe, is easy to do, and looks very nice on a quilt. Again, I omitted the corner teardrop and just made 2 passes of Hillside.

Rainbows

Isn’t this a really fun and quirky Hillside variation? It looks great on kids’ quilts but could also look elegant on a formal table runner, too. Again, I did not draw a corner teardrop, instead I just let the Hillside Echo strut its stuff. This design is also made with 2 passes; however, you can add as many Rainbow passes as you want and have space for – the more the merrier!

Hillside Zig Zag

Another big secret of FMQ is combining different designs together to make more interesting and more complex-looking designs. It just takes some practice, some time, and a sprinkle of patience. I drew the Hillside design first and then added the Zig Zag inside the Hillside as my second pass.

These are just a few beginner-friendly variations of Hillside. I bet when you’re doodling, you’ll come up with some more. Just don’t forget to actually try quilting on your practice square and once you feel comfortable, quilt a real small project! WOW!

Loops

I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find a quilted example of a border Loops design, so we’ll have to use my doodles as our reference.

This design is a lot like our basic Loop allover design from earlier in the series , but it is straight instead of meandering and the loops all point in one direction.

In the Loops design, above, I drew alternating big and little loops, which is sometimes called E’s and L’s.

Most of the time, though, I make my loops roughly the same size instead of alternating big and small. Grab your white board and try this one out. When you’re ready, try it on your practice square. I bet you’ll get comfortable with this design quickly, so don’t forget to move on to quilting an actual small quilt project.

Now let’s play with a couple Loops variations. Like the previous designs, the red line is my first pass and the blue line is my second pass.

Lace Edge 1

This quilt example, above, is a corner of my recent Erin table runner. I added a simple leaf in the corners because of the foliage border fabric. Want to see more of the quilt? You can find the Erin pattern HERE.

In this Lace Edge doodle, I did Loops (all roughly the same size) for the first pass and then I quilted Hillside as the second pass. This is absolutely one of my favorite designs – hands down! I use it often, quilting different elements in the corners or no elements at all.

Lace Edge 2

In this Lace Edge variation, I quilted 2 rows of Loops, but I flipped the second one over so it was facing the first pass of Loops and I moved over a half space. This design can look stunning on quilts. And complicated, too. SHHH! Never tell anyone how easy it really is. LOL!

Once you’ve quilted your quilt, it’s time to add binding to finish the edge. And don’t forget your label.

Check out these posts from our 2022 Beginner Quilting series:

Squaring Up Your Quilt

Binding 101

Label Your Quilt

Well, that’s a wrap! I hope you found our Beginner FMQ series to be helpful. Leave a comment if you did and what you liked the best about the series.

And as always, I’d love to see your free motion quilted quilts! Please share them on our VRD Facebook page.

Have a great week with some sunshine, some FMQ, and a sprinkle of Irish luck (wink, wink!).

Until next week –

Sew. Laugh. FMQ. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

2025 Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Series

Beginner Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Lesson 6 – Going Beyond Loops Part 2

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I hope you have all been practicing your Loops and your Loop variations from last week’s Lesson 5. This week we are going to continue Going Beyond Loops with 3 more Loop variations.

If you missed any of our Beginner Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Lessons so far, you can find them all below:

Lesson 1: All the Background Information

Lesson 2: Let’s Doodle!

Lesson 3: Practice, Practice, Practice

Lesson 4: The Write Way to Doodle!

Lesson 5: Going Beyond Loops Part 1

I have also added a section over on the right side of the blog entitled 2025 Beginner Free Motion Quilting Series where you will be able to easily find all of the lessons in the future so you don’t have to sift through posts to find them.

Going Beyond Loops Part 2

If you’ve been having fun playing around with the Loop variations from last week, good for you! I hope you came away with the knowledge that you can add any kind of motif to the basic Loop design to change it up. Stars? Check! Hearts? Check Check! Elephants? Sure, why not. You just need to practice drawing an elephant motif without lifting your dry erase marker on your handy dandy white board. Practice until you are happy with your motif. Then practice drawing your Loops and motif together on your white board. Again, practice until it feels natural and you are not lifting up your dry erase marker (this is super important!). Then make a fresh practice square, take a deep breath, and just do it! This is my basic method for creating endless Loop variations. I’ve done hot air balloons and palm trees, to name a few. You can too, it only takes practice. And courage. You. CAN. Do. It.

Are you ready? Strap on your helmet and put on your your seat belt cause here we go!

#4 Double Loops

I think you’ll love these Double Loops – they are quick and fun and look great on most any project except maybe Civil War reproductions.

Check out my Double Loop example below. This is a close up of the quilting on my cover quilt for my Sunny Day VRD Rose Card pattern. Yes, I quilted a simple Feather design in the borders. LOL!

So, let’s grab our white boards and give Double Loops a try. Go ahead and draw a loop, then loop around the loop. Easy and very fun.

Now let’s practice connecting our Double Loops together.

Go ahead and practice this a bit until it feels comfortable.

It’s time to try this design on a practice square on your sewing machine. Below, you can see how I make Double Loops. It takes a little practice, but because you’ve already been working on the basic Loops design, adding a second loop around your first loop won’t take as long to master. So, get to it and quilt some Double Loops!

Wasn’t that a fun design? Just imagine all the quilts you can finish using this quirky and cool FMQ design? And don’t forget that you can change it up and make it entirely your own designs.

#5 Leaves

Leaves are a super element to have in your FMQ toolbox because leaves are all around us from the fabrics to the quilt blocks to the trees right outside the window. Can’t you picture how leaves will look quilted on your autumn quilts?

You can create leaves in just about any shape or style you can imagine. For this lesson, I’m going to show you a simple leaf or two. Feel free to use your imagination to come up with your own leaf shapes, too.

Here is a simple heart-shaped leaf for you to practice.

Once you get the leaf shape down, now it’s time to add it to your basic Loop design.

Go ahead and practice the Leaf variation until you can do it smoothly. Then it’s time to try it on your practice square with your sewing machine.

Here’s a quick video clip of me quilting the Leaf and Loop variation.

Practice. Practice. Practice.

#6 Flowers

Our last variation is adding flowers to our basic Loop design. Like leaves, you can create any flower shape you want or you can even mix different flower shapes together with you loops to create an entire quilted flower garden. For today, we are going to focus on Daisies.

Daisies are simple to make. A circle followed by a ring of petals. Add an echo around the daisy if you want as this will make your flowers stand out.

Now it’s your turn to doodle and draw some flowers on your white board. What’s your favorite flower? Can you draw it without lifting your dry erase marker?

Next we’re going to add our Daisy to our basic Loop design. Go ahead and practice this variation on your white board.

Okay, time to quilt the Daisy and Loop variation on your practice square with your sewing machine. You can do it. Of course you can.

Below is a short video of me quilting Daisies and Loops.

I hope you are having fun with all of the designs and variations we’ve been exploring. Keep practicing as often as you can, but don’t wait too long before you quilt a small project for real. A snack mat, place mats, table runner or other small project is the perfect sized project on which to hone your skills. So hop to it and get quilting the FMQ way.

I hope you’ll stop back in 2 weeks as we wrap up our Beginner FMQ series with our final lesson – Quilting Borders with Simple Designs. Next week we’ll be showing our March patterns and a fun quilt tutorial for St. Patrick’s Day.

Until then –

Sew. Laugh. FMQ. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

2025 Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Series · Quilt As Desired · Tips and Tricks · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

Beginner Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Lesson 5: Going Beyond Loops Part 1

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I am thrilled to tell you that we’ve had a little bit warmer temperatures for a couple days in row here in NW PA. I’m talking above 32 degrees! Actually it’s been in the 40’s, which feels so balmy compared to last week’s temperatures in the single digits and teens. Whew! But I don’t think winter is over yet for us, though, as the beginning of March is looking cold again. Spring can’t get here soon enough!

PSST! While we’re waiting for Spring to arrive, it is a great time to work on our Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) skills, don’t you think? So far we’ve talked about tools, equipment, and resources; doodling, making loops, and using cursive writing as a quilting design.

This week for Lesson 5, we are venturing beyond the Loopy design.

If you missed any of the earlier lessons, you can find them below:

Lesson 1: All the Background Information

Lesson 2: Let’s Doodle!

Lesson 3: Practice, Practice, Practice

Lesson 4: The Write Way to Doodle!

Let’s get started!

Going Beyond Loops

You might be wondering what exactly I mean by “going beyond loops”. Talk a deep breath — there is no need to panic. I promise we are not jumping right into Feathers. Relax, Feathers are ahead of you sometime in the future, but today is not the day. Instead, we are going to add some fun elements to our quilting to change up our basic Loopy FMQ design.

#1 Snowflakes with Loops

This design is absolutely one of my favorites, hands down! It is quite flexible and looks great on a lot of different quilts. Depending on the theme of the quilt, it can look like a snowflake, a star, fireworks, a starburst, or even a cool funky flower. Wow! That’s a lot of options for a single element, isn’t it?

Here is an example of the Snowflake and Loop design on a Christmas/winter place mat I created years and years ago for a magazine pattern.

Please note this place mat design was featured in Quilter’s World magazine some years ago and is a copyrighted design.

Grab your dry erase markers and let’s practice drawing Snowflakes or whatever you would like to call them on our white boards. You can decide how many spokes/rays you want your Snowflakes to have. You can even vary the number in your design to add more interest.

Next let’s add Loops to the Snowflakes and practice drawing our new Loopy variation design. Ready, set, go!Do you see how I surrounded each of the Snowflakes with my Loops? I like to use the Snowflakes as an accent, not the primary design. The primary design, of course, is the Loops. Additionally, I like to give my Loops lots of space to breathe.

Go ahead and practice drawing this design a couple times. Experiment with the Snowflakes (do you want 6 or 8 or more spokes/rays?).

Next, we’re going to FMQ this design on a practice square on our sewing machines. Are you ready? Take a deep breath and just do it.

To get you started, here’s a little video I made for you, showing how I create my Snowflake and Loop variation.

Here is a little example of quilting the Snowflake and Loop design.

Now it’s your turn to practice this design. Enjoy playing with it! Just imagine all the different kinds of quilts you can use it on!

#2 Kindergarten Star with Loops

Do you remember when you first learned how to make a five-pointed star? Probably around kindergarten, I should think. Can you remember how to make it now?

Here’s a little tutorial to jog your memory. Keep in mind that I am left-handed so you might draw your star differently than I do. Remember, you do you.

Kindergarten stars aren’t too much different from the Snowflake element above. And once you get comfortable making a five point star again (believe me, it will take some practice for some of you to remaster this shape), the design will flow more easily. Go ahead and draw some Five Pointed Stars on your white board. Make as many as you can fit onto the board. Make them all different sizes, too.

Now let’s practice drawing Kindergarten Stars combined with our FMQ Loop design. Feel free to do this several times until it feels more natural to you.

I bet by now (that is if you’ve been practicing) you are probably finding alternating the direction of the loops to be easier than when you first started several weeks ago. Go you!

Keep practicing on your white board until you can draw the five point stars without thinking about each line. Then I want you to practice making those stars upside down and sideways or else your design will come out very linear with stars lined up going the same direction.

This design looks amazing on patriotic quilts and on children’s quilts, too. What other kinds of quilts would look great with Kindergarten Stars and Loops?

Next up, we’re going to try quilting this design with our machines. Before we do, though, here’s a quick little video showing how I FMQ Kindergarten Stars and Loops.

Let’s make five point Kindergarten Stars!

Okay, now it’s your time to practice quilting Kindergarten Stars paired with Loops! This is fun, isn’t it?

#3 Hearts and Loops

Hearts will be our last design for today. So, how are you at making hearts? I have discovered that I can rarely make both sides of a heart exactly the same, so in my quilting (drawing and cutting, too), I intentionally make the sides of my hearts different. It lends a quirky funky look to my Hearts and Loops design, and that works just fine for me. LOL!

I have found that there are 2 basic ways to quilt hearts. Maybe you’ll come up with a different one and if you do, I hope you with share.

Anyway, the first way starts at the top center point and curves down and stops briefly at the bottom point before swooping back up and around to the center point once again. Remember, I’m a lefty so I usually move counterclockwise. Do what is comfortable for you.

The second way is one continuous line which might make it easier for you to FMQ hearts. It starts at the bottom point then curves up and around to the center point where you pause briefly before doing the second top bump and then swooping back down to the bottom point. This heart reminds me more of a heart shaped balloon – you’ll see this more when I quilt it.

So go ahead and practice your stars on your white board. Which style do you like better?

Now that I’ve mentioned both styles, I’m going to show and use the second style Heart design. I find that it can flow better with the loops than the first Heart style.

Now it’s your turn to practice drawing the Heart and Loop design on your white board. Repeat as many times as you want, experimenting with your Hearts.

Notice how I crossed the bottoms of the hearts in the design.

Let’s head back to our sewing machines and try FMQ Hearts and Loops. Here’s a quick video of how I do FMQ my Hearts and Loops.

Check out this cute little Hearts and Loops design!

Well, that’s it for me today. I hope you keep practicing your Loops and adding these fun elements to change up your designs. Next week I’ll have a few more Loop design variations to share with you. So stay tuned!

Take care!

Until then –

Sew. Laugh. FMQ. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

2025 Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Series · Quilt As Desired · Tips and Tricks · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

Beginner Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Lesson 4: The Write Way to Doodle!

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I hope you are ready for another Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) lesson! But before we do that, I want to take a moment and congratulate Janie in Texas, who is our 1000th email subscriber! WAHOO!!!!!! Thank you, Janie, for supporting the VRD Blog!

I trust you are all practicing your FMQ loops from last week’s leeson. Remember, don’t spend too much time doodling on your white boards before you actually start trying those loops out on your sewing machine.

If you missed our previous FMQ lessons, you can find them below:

Lesson 1: All the Background Information

Lesson 2: Let’s Doodle!

Lesson 3: Practice, Practice, Practice

I want to take a couple minutes to talk about useful beginning projects as you are developing your FMQ skills.

Projects to Build Your FMQ Skills On

Please don’t tackle a king sized Double Wedding Ring quilt top made by your granny in the Depression as your first FMQ project. I can almost guarantee that you will end up tearing everything out. First you must crawl before you can run!

Maybe you have a whole stack of meticulously pieced antique or vintage quilt tops just waiting to be lovingly completed and that’s your motivation for learning to FMQ. Goodness knows, there are probably as many reasons to learn as there are quilting patterns! But please slow down a little bit.

Do you remember when you learned to tie your shoes? It took a lot of practice before you successfully tied those shoestrings. Same goes with riding a bike. What about driving a car? Or doing pretty much anything you want to master – it all takes work and practice.

FMQ is like that, too. It takes practice to get to the level of mastery you want to achieve. Remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day and most likely you will not be a master free machine quilter in a few practice sessions. It’s going to take some time to get where you want to be. But I promise you, if you put in the work you will get better every time you practice. And the more you practice, the more quickly you’ll be wow-ing your family and friends with your FMQ skills.

Okay, I’m jumping down off my soapbox now.

So you’ve been making up some practice squares and practicing those loops since Lesson 3 last week and you feel pretty good about alternating your loops to the left and to the right. Maybe those loops still look kind of like wiggly carrots sometimes, but you’re itching to quilt something for real.

I suggest starting with smaller projects that are not dear to your heart — potholders, baby bibs, snack mats, place mats, table runners, anything small so you won’t feel like you’re wrestling an alligator while you’re trying to FMQ. I bet you have some orphan quilt blocks lurking in your stash somewhere – make them into potholders or whatever. Then layer those practice quilt pieces with batting and backing (yes, I even give you permission to use up all your ugly fabrics as quilt backing). Now quilt them with loops! Loop to the left, loop to the right. Lots and lots of loops. Consider these practice quilt pieces as practice square variations. Hate how it turned out? Then recycle it into dust cloths. Guilt free. The important thing here is you are building up your FMQ skills by sewing over seams and through different fabrics. Just keep going and growing!

When I taught free motion classes for beginners, I asked the students to layer a printed panel with batting and backing as homework before class (along with their practice squares) and bring it with them. Panels are such a great beginner free motion quilting project because you haven’t put a lot of yourself into it with all the cutting, piecing, and/or applique that usually goes into a quilt.

If you love how your panel project turns out, that’s great! Put it on your wall and show it off or gift it to someone special and tell them you quilted it yourself. Enjoy that lovely feeling of pride in your work!

If you don’t love it, that’s okay, too, because panels are a nice size to make into lovely pet quilts for your own pets or your furry grandbaby. Or donate them to your local shelter or rescue. Either way, they will be used and loved. Of course, if any of your beginning projects end up a total mess, I give you permission to recycle them into cleaning rags.

Here’s great panel with borders already printed on it – just layer it and start quilting.
You can find this panel by P&B Textiles HERE.
Looking for more great panels?
We’ve got ’em at the VRD quilt shop.

Let’s keep moving and dive into today’s lesson – we are going to practice our cursive writing as free motion quilting! Yup, let’s write our way to a finished quilt.

Writing as Free Motion Quilting

Most likely you know how to write in cursive but if you do not or haven’t done so for a long time, never fear – there are great resources and tutorials on the Internet and how-to books out there, too.

If you are like me, your handwriting is a combination of printed and cursive letters. And that is just fine. I am not going to wrap your knuckles with my wooden ruler, I promise. Your cursive writing doesn’t have to be perfect 4th grade handwriting, the letters just have to connect together. You do you.

Let’s use our whiteboards to write the lowercase cursive alphabet, connecting the letters in one long string. The reason I said the lowercase letters is because they naturally flow into the next letter, while not all capital letters will do that. We’re not looking for perfection here, so stop thinking and just do it. I found if I did it quickly without too much thought, I actually wrote better.

Go ahead and practice this a few times, you might be a little rusty and writing the letters on your board will bring back some of your muscle memory.

I hope you have a little room on your most recent practice squares – or you can put together another one like I did – because I want you to try to free motion quilt the alphabet. Seriously. This is great practice to develop a smoother flow to your quilting. So go ahead and quilt the alphabet a couple times.

That was kind of fun, wasn’t it?

Next up is writing your name in cursive on your whiteboards. Depending on the first letter of your name, you might be able to use a capital letter. Mostly, I just use all lowercase letters to keep things simple and so I don’t forget whether I’m using capital letters or not.

Since I’ve been doing this for a while, I’ve already figured out how to dot my i’s and cross my t. Cute, huh? Just my way to incorporate those zany loops into my quilted writing.

Go ahead and practice writing your name. You might have to do this a couple of times until you get the look you want. You can even try different ways to dot any i’s or cross any t’s. Or maybe a capital letter works for your first letter. Just have fun with it.

And now it’s time to quilt your name on your practice squares. Feel free to do this as many times as you want to in order to get the look that makes you happy. I used both a lowercase and a capital T below in my examples and I definitely prefer the all lowercase letters. I think it looks more whimsical with my loopy dotted i’s and my curvy swoosh crossed t. Which one do you like better?

Isn’t this fun? I think it’s pretty cool that my quilted signature looks a lot like my written one. Does your quilted signature look like your written signature, too?

Now let’s try writing other words on our whiteboards. One time I had the brilliant idea to quilt the word “baby” in rows across a baby quilt I was making for my coworker. I loved how it looked after I quilted it, but quilting one word over and over became quite tedious and I was so glad when I finished it. Afterwards, I wished I had included other baby words like bottle, bib, crib, bear, love, etc. That would have made my quilted written design that much more interesting. Oh well. Live and learn.

Let’s write! Just make sure all the letter are connected. Go ahead and experiment with dotted and crossed letters.

Now let’s connect words together into continuous lines. When I do this, I like to make a consistent number of alternating loops between the words to separate them and I leave lots of room between words to give them space to breathe, which makes the words a little easier to read.

Sorry, I couldn’t find a dry erase marker that wrote very well, but my quilting will look better.

Now let’s practice quilting the words together. Don’t forget to put loops between the words so you can read the words after you quilt them. You may have to be creative with any dots and crosses.

Now it’s your turn to use your cursive writing as a quilting design. Keep practicing. Don’t be afraid to try your FMQ on some actual projects, too — a panel or place mats or orphan quilt blocks turned into potholders. Go ahead – you know you want to! Keep practicing your alternating loop design, too.

Stay tuned next week for Lesson 5: Going Beyond Loops. See you then!

Take care and stay warm. It was -3 this morning here in northwest Pennsylvania. BRRRR!

Sew. Laugh. Practice. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

2025 Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Series · Tips and Tricks · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

NEW February VRD Rose Card Quilt Patterns AND Beginner Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Lesson 3: Practice, Practice Practice!

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I hope all of you are weathering the winter so far. Here in NW Pennsylvania, Mother Nature is laughing at us this year and is giving us a good old-fashioned Pennsylvania winter with lots of ice and snow. We haven’t had this much snow or cold temperatures for something like 5 years. I guess Mother Nature wanted to remind us what Pennsylvania winters are really like. Sigh…..It’s been a long long winter and I am so looking forward to spring.

We have a lot to cover today, including NEW patterns and we’re going to continue with our Beginners Free Motion Quilting Series. Thank you for your patience while we celebrated Pat’s new fabric collection, Bedazzled!, here on the blog for the last couple weeks with 2 new quilt tutorials.

If you missed the tutorials, you can find them here:

Baby Zip Tease

2M Junior

Let’s jump right in. Of course, I’ll be wearing my winter boots, coat, mittens, hat, and a scarf. LOL!

New February Rose Card Quilt Patterns

Get the 5 pattern print collection HERE

What a great group of quilts, right? Barnum is Jelly Roll friendly. Miranda and Southern Peach are fat quarter friendly. Espresso features a horizontal panel, which is super because it’s hard to find horizontal panel quilt patterns. Facetime uses panel squares or a focal fabric.

We’ve got kits, too! (PSST! A new quilt project is a great way to beat the winter blues.)

Espresso in Coffee Chalk (the fabrics in the pattern cover quilt)

Barnum in Dandi Duo

Facetime in Noble Menagerie (the fabrics in the pattern cover quilt)

Southern Peach in Tim Holtz Palette Orange (the fabrics in the pattern cover quilt)

Southern Peach in Sweater Weather

Miranda in Tim Holtz Palette Red (the fabrics in the pattern cover quilt)

Here’s February’s new table runner pattern, Love Books. I have to admit I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, so why not a table runner to reflect my bookish nerdiness?

Do you have an embroidery sewing machine? Why not embroider the titles of your favorite books or the books you read in 2025 on the runner? You can make this runner as long as you’d like to, just add more fabric.

Get the digital pattern HERE or the print pattern HERE

And here is our very last snack mat, Dear Heart. This makes me a bit sad because it’s been really fun creating a new snack mat for each month for an entire year, but at the same time, I’m excited about a couple new ideas, so stay tuned.

Get the digital pattern HERE or the print pattern HERE

So there you have it — fast and fun new patterns for everyone.

Now let’s get back to our Beginner FMQ series.

Beginner FMQ Series Lesson 3: Practice, Practice, Practice!

Today’s the day! We are finally going to do some actual free motion quilting. Yippee!

First, I’d like to suggest you do a little doodling to warm up before sitting down at your machine. Let’s practice some loops on our white boards. I wouldn’t doodle more than 10-15 minutes, though, this is just a warm up.

Next up, we’re going to put together a practice square.

I usually choose a light tonal or solid colored fat quarter and something from my ugly pile for the back fat quarter. And my usual 80/20 batting.

Next we’re going to go ahead and layer the 2 fat quarters with a piece of batting just like you would layer an actual quilt for machine quilting.

I’m a pinner, so I use curved safety pins, but you use whatever works best for you (pinning, spray basting, etc.). I like to use the size 2 (1.5″) or size 3 (2″) curved safety pins.

Go ahead and get your practice square ready, I’ll wait right here for you.

Did you know that cotton fabric will stick to cotton batting if you press it with your iron? Sometimes, I just press everything really good and I skip the pins.

Okay, now let’s practice!

Here are some important points to remember from the video:

  1. Don’t forget to put your presser foot down before you start quilting
  2. Pull the bottom thread up to the top before securing your stitching by stitching in place a couple of times
  3. Start in the middle of your quilt
  4. Use your hands as a frame around the needle — keep your fingers away from the needle, please
  5. Unless you are planning to pop a not into the batting to secure the stitching, cut the threads tails off so after you’ve secured them so they don’t get all tied up in your stitching
  6. Size your loops/quilting to your project
  7. Alternate your loops to the left and to the right
  8. Curve into and out of your loops for a more organic flow
  9. Don’t crowd your loops, give them room to breathe
  10. Quilt to an edge and then move around the quilt like you would a clock face
  11. Move at a comfortable pace, you are not racing the needle
  12. Aim for consistent regular stitches, not perfection
  13. Go for beauty, not perfection!
  14. Stop with your needle down in the quilt, then reposition your hands
  15. Remove the pins as you go, don’t sew over them

OOPS! I forgot to mention that for your practice squares, make sure to use a contrasting thread so you can see your quilting.

Here is the front and the back of my practice sample:

I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. I wish the thread hadn’t broken, but looking at it in the photo, you really don’t see it. See how the printed fabric on the back (my “ugly”) distracts your eye from the stitching. So, one of my best tips is to use a busy fabric on the back of your quilt to help distract the eye from your quilting, especially if you are still learning.

Do you have any questions right now about FMQ? If so, please post them in the comments section so I can respond.

Your mission, should you accept it, is to make more practice squares and practice. Practice, practice, practice makes better, not perfect. So get to it!

See you next week for our FMQ Lesson 4.

Take care and stay warm.

Sew. Laugh. Practice. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

2025 Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Series · Tips and Tricks · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

Beginner Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Lesson 2: Let’s Doodle!

rosecards2 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I’m excited to continue on our Beginner Free Motion Quilting adventure! Put your seat belt on and get ready to ride!

I hope you had a chance to read last week’s post, which was a lot of information about things to know before you start. You can find Lesson 1 HERE.

Please note that I’m adding the FMQ series to the right side of the screen under the Blog Topic section so that it’s easy to find each lesson as they get posted.

Lesson 2 – Let’s Doodle!

All right! In Lesson 2, we’re going to DOODLE! Yep, that’s right! DOODLE!

Whenever I taught a Beginner FMQ class, I started out with doodling on a dry erase board. I actually bought a class set of boards which came with felt erasers and even markers, which was super for a class with 4-12 students.

Any kind of dry erase board works – you don’t have to buy a special classroom set (unless you plan to teach FMQ – LOL!). You can even find dry erase boards and dry erase markers at your local Dollar Tree store. So if you don’t already have one, they are easy to find and relatively inexpensive to purchase.

Just make sure you are using real dry erase markers (not sharpies!) on your board or else you won’t be able to erase it and use it over and over.

You might wonder why I’m starting off with doodling and not just jumping right into FMQ on the sewing machine.

Doodling gives you the opportunity to develop eye hand coordination and to build muscle memory. Believe it or not, but doodling really does help when you are starting out with FMQ. If you’ve practiced the movements on your board, they will come easier and more quickly when you are working with your sewing machine.

Besides, doodling is fun and relaxing. You can do it while watching TV, during the commercials, listening to your favorite audiobook, or even while waiting at the doctor’s office! AND you have the ability to erase your doodling whenever you want to. Yay!

Zigzags

Let’s start out with some fun zigzags. Zigzags will help us to feel comfortable moving across the board and going up and down at the same time. Like hills and valleys. V’s and W’s. Give it a try. Make sure to connect each shape/letter with the next one.

Curves and Waves

Let’s practice some gentle curves and waves on our boards just to get a feeling for the smooth movement. Don’t overthink this, just relax and glide across the board. If desired, you can even practice these motions in the air with your hands and arms. I’ve always been a big proponent of “air writing.”

ABC’s

Now let’s try some cursive writing! Believe it or not, but lowercase cursive letters are great practice for FMQ! Seriously! Make sure you are connecting the letters together. I find that the faster I write the alphabet in cursive, the better it looks. Don’t think about the shape of each letter – you already know it – just write it.

Go ahead and write your name in all lowercase cursive letters. You know you want to! Try some other words, too. Just remember to connect the letters together. Feel free to have some fun like I did with my name when I dotted my i’s and crossed my t.

Okay, now we’re going to focus on the cursive lowercase “E” (e) and the lowercase “L” (l). Just keep connecting them together.

After you are comfortable making e’s and l’s, I want you to try alternating the loops. This may be challenging for some of you, but keep doodling until you feel more comfortable with this. Doodle, doodle, doodle.

We definitely want to alternate the loops, or else we’ll get something like this. Yikes! The idea is to move across the board and fill in the white space, not to make clouds and weird flowers.

Once you’ve got alternating the loops reasonably down, we’re ready to add more movement to this design. This time we’re going to move our loops up, down, and across the board while alternating the loops (yep, all at the same time!) so we can fill up the white space.

Try not to overthink things here. Don’t stress yourself out if things aren’t perfect – we’re not going for perfection here. I find the faster I go, the better it looks. Remember, you can keep erasing it and trying again.

Loops!

Wohoo! Pat yourself on the back! You are making loops!

Loops are one of my favorite and best go-to designs. AND it’s the design I start out with when I teach FMQ! Go you!

I’ve found Loops to be more beginner friendly for most people. Being able to cross over your lines gives you a little more feeling of control. I have found, though, that perhaps 1 in 10 quilters have a hard time mastering loops – mainly the alternating of them – so those folks I encourage to move on to stippling/meandering.

Have you ever taken a beginner FMQ class where the teacher starts you out with stippling/meandering? I bet there are a lot of you who felt really frustrated because you couldn’t master the design and may have even quit trying to master FMQ after that class.

Well, I’m here to tell you that –

YES, YOU CAN MASTER FMQ!

So “let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start” (kudos if you can name the movie, the song, and the actress for this quote).

And the very beginning is making loops!

I hope you’ll spend a little time doodling this week because next week for Lesson 3, we are going to start working with our machines and our Loopy design. I’d love to see your doodles in the comments or on our VRD Facebook page.

Until next time –

Sew. Laugh. Doodle. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

2025 Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Series · Quilt As Desired · Tips and Tricks · villa rosa designs

Beginner Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Lesson 1: All the Background Information

rosecards8 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I’ve been itching to do a new series on the blog and decided that I really wanted to do one about Free Motion Quilting, or FMQ for short. I taught beginner FMQ at my local quilt shops for many years, but it’s been awhile since I’ve taught a class that I also thought it would be fun to revisit my FMQ techniques and share them with you.

This series will be aimed at beginning Free Motion Quilters, but more experienced quilters are of course welcome. LOL! I thought I’d start off with an intro post about getting ready to quilt.

Is there anything specific you would like me to address in this Beginner FMQ series? I’ll try to include it.

Let’s get started!

What the Heck is Free Motion Quilting (FMQ)?

Before we can go much further, I’d like to take a minute and talk about what FMQ really is.

A lot of quilters I know use a walking foot and quilt straight lines on their quilts with their feed dogs up. This is great and gets the job done, but this in NOT FMQ.

Ruler work is starting to take hold in my area now, but this isn’t exactly FMQ either, but it has many similarities.

Free Motion Quilting is exactly as the name implies — it is free motion quilting. This means that you, the quilter, are moving the quilt sandwich. Yes, you can FMQ on a long arm quilting machine, but for this series I am going to work from the domestic machine perspective as that is how I roll.

The feed dogs are down (or covered) when you are Free Motion Quilting and you, the quilter, are making things move which then creates whatever design you are quilting. The machine’s job is simply to provide the juice so the needle will go up and down.

Don’t believe me? Watch this quick video:

The needle goes up and down really fast. And that’s it!

If you still don’t believe me, try it yourself. Disengage your feed dogs, attach a FM foot (darning foot) and push your foot pedal to the metal. No hands!

See??? All the needle does is go up and down really fast until you make a thread knot on the back and your thread eventually breaks. That’s it.

YOU are what creates the actual quilting design in FMQ. YOU are in control.

One more thing about true FMQ — we don’t really mark our quilts or try to quilt on a drawn line. True Free Motion Quilting is free.

When I was a beginning quilter, I tried hand-quilting and my stitches were terribly huge. So then I tried machine quilting in the ditch and couldn’t quilt a straight line to save my life. Then I finally discovered FMQ and found out I wasn’t a complete dunce and I really could machine quilt. Yay me!

The Fear of Free Motion Quilting

As a FMQ instructor for many years, I heard a lot of different ideas about FMQ from my students. One of the most repeated statements was a fear of how fast FMQ looks.

Please don’t be afraid of speed in FMQ. YOU are the one moving the quilt around on your domestic sewing machine. The machine itself just powers the needle to go up and down. If you’ve forgotten, watch the video, above, again to remind you.

The machine is not moving anything — YOU are moving the quilt sandwich so the speed at which you move the quilt is entirely up to you. The needle’s job is just to go up and down. What you do and what the needle does are 2 different things. You need to focus on moving the quilt sandwich at a comfortable speed for you, not trying to go as fast as the needle is going up and down. You will need to find the perfect balance for YOU.

Take a deep breath and repeat after me — “My job is to move the quilt. The needle’s job is to go up and down.” Repeat as many times as you need to in order to internalize and believe this statement.

Another fear I have frequently heard was that quilters were afraid of the needle itself. Just like when we are sewing a seam, we have to keep in mind where our fingers are in relation to the needle. So it is with FMQ. Keep your hands away from the needle by repositioning frequently. We’ll talk about this more later in the series.

No fear, okay? With a little practice, FMQ is a lot of fun and it’s very satisfying to machine quilt your own projects.

The Tools of FMQ

Like anything else, yep, there are tools that can make FMQ easier and more comfortable. Of course, the tools I am going to talk about below are the ones I personally use, and may not be what works for everyone. So please use what tools work best for you. If you’re not sure what works for you yet, try out some different ones to see what you like. If you were a student in my class, I would have all of the thing below so that you could try them out. I’ve even had students use my own sewing machine in class.

Sewing Machine

This is an absolute must for FMQ! LOL!

You don’t need a fancy shmancy machine, though, to successfully FMQ your quilts. What you do need is a reliable sewing machine on which you can drop your feed dogs. Dropping (or disengaging) the feed dogs is a lot better than simply covering the feed dogs. The cover can create a bump on your machine bed which may have a negative affect on your FMQ.

A heavier machine is a better choice than a lightweight one because the lighter the machine, the more it will bounce while you FMQ.

Just a heads up — my quilty pal, Mary Lee, found out the hard way that older Pfaff machines DO NOT like to do FMQ. It just about ruined her machine. She ended up buying a Janome.

Janomes are great machines for FMQ. I can say that personally because I’ve had 2 different Janomes. My current one is a Horizon MC8900 QCP. I’m not sure if they even make this model anymore, though, as it’s some years old now. What makes my big machine awesome at FMQ is that it has a large throat at 11″. I know that some domestic machines are being made today with even larger throats. Wowza!

If you are considering a new machine, head to your local machine retailer (which is also one of my local quilt shops for me). Talk to the people, tell them what you need and might want to do in the future with your machine. Make sure you test lots of different machines. Take your time selecting you new best quilting friend. I’ve bought machines online and I’ve bought machines at my local quilt shop. The best part of buying at your local shop is the customer service. You don’t get that online.

Get the biggest throat on your new machine you can afford. Make sure the feed dogs drop. Does it come with all the quilting feet or do you have to buy them separately? Remember, take your time and get the best machine that does what you want it to do at a price you can afford. You can always upgrade sometime down the road if your needs change.

Needles

I found out a long time ago that quilting needles worked better than universal needles for, well, quilting. There is pretty much a needle for any type of sewing you want to do — embroidery, jeans, etc. So why shouldn’t we be using quilting needles for quilting?

Here are the needles I’ve used and been happy with:

Klasse Quilting Needles 80/12

Klasse Quilting Needles 90/14

Schmetz Quilting Needles 80/12

Schmetz Quilting Needles 90/14

Janome Purple Tip Needles

Klasse and Schmetz needles are very good and easy to find at your local shop or online. But these days, I primarily use Janome Purple Tip needles for piecing and quilting on my Janome machine. My machine likes these needles best and as I like to keep my sewing machine happy, I use Purple Tip needles.

You might want to check with your sewing machine manufactureror your local retailer to find out what needles they recommend for free motion quilting on your particular sewing machine.

Sewing Machine Foot

In order to do FMQ, you will need a darning foot, which is also called a FMQ foot or a hopping foot.

Please make sure to check your sewing machine manual to find out what type of shank your machine has. These days most are low shank, but there are also high shank and slant shank.

If you are fortunate, your sewing machine might have come with a set of quilter’s feet which usually includes a 1/4″ foot for piecing, a walking foot for straight line quilting, and a darning foot for FMQ. If your machine didn’t come with a darning foot, you will need to purchase one. Please make sure to check your sewing machine manual to find out what type of shank your machine has. These days most are low shank, but there are also high shank and slant shank machines. A good place to start is your machine retailer who will hopefully have the foot you need to fit your sewing machine. If you cannot find one that matches your machine, there are different generic feet available out there.

Here are some darning foot examples.

When it comes to the darning foot I use on my machine, I have a convertible foot that came with my machine, but can be bought separately.

Janome Convertible Free Motion Foot for low shank machines

You might wonder why I like this FMQ foot system the best. First, it work great with my machine. Second, I prefer an open toe for my FMQ foot and this set has one. And third, it doesn;t hop up and down — it’s stationary, so FMQ is smoother, which improves my quilting.

Extension Table

Does your sewing machine have an extension table? My Janome does as do my 2 smaller Brother machines. An extension table is a great thing when you are doing FMQ because it gives your hands somewhere to rest while you work. Most sewing machine beds are pretty small which doesn’t give you much room to work. An extension table is like a super secret FMQ weapon!

If you are lucky, your sewing machine came with an extension table built exclusively for your machine model. If you don’t have one, check with your local machine retailer to see if there is one that fits your machine. Of course, there are generic extension tables too, but I personally feel that they don’t fit your machine as well as one specifically built for that model.

An example of a sewing machine with an extension table.

Gloves

When I first began FMQ, I didn’t even know there were gloves out there for FMQ. I saw my first pair of gloves in a lovely urban quilt shop called Quiltology in Chicago (the shop is now closed and morphed into a personal design studio) when I was at a teaching conference years and years ago (I slipped away for a few hours one afternoon and took a cab to the shop). The first pair of gloves I ever used were called Machingers.

Wow! What a difference in my FMQ when I started using gloves. I had much better control over the quilt sandwich and I had better gripping power. The only problem I experienced with Machingers was that the elastic wrists stretched out after a while and the gloves were kind of loose.

Eventually I stumbled onto Grabaroos. They fit more snugly than the Machingers and were nice and cool, even when I was FMQ in the middle of a hot summer day in my un-air conditioned studio, but the fingers were a bit too long for me. But they worked great and I kept improving my machine quilting. Alas, the wrist elastic also stretched out and I went through several pairs a year.

Then some years ago, I went to a Quilt Market Schoolhouse lecture and found the perfect machine quilting gloves for me! Swan Amity gloves. Yep, I’ve talked about these gloves before. I love that they are leather and they have an adjustable wrist strap so they fit perfectly every time. And they last a long time! My first pair lasted for years and I’d still be using them right now except I bought another pair a a couple years ago.

Do you have to have gloves for FMQ? No, not really. BUT, like a sewing machine extension table, quilting gloves are a secret weapon in your FMQ arsenal.

Supreme Slider

As I’ve become a more experienced free motion quilter, I rarely use my Supreme Slider anymore. But it is a good tool to have around so that when your quilt sandwich just won’t slide nicely on your sewing machine bed, you can take a quick break and slap on your Supreme Slider. Voila! Your quilt sandwich now slides around for lovely consistent smooth stitching.

A Supreme Slider is a super slippery Teflon sheet that sticks to your sewing machine bed. It has a tacky back that is reusable — you just need to dampen it and pat it dry so it sticks again.

Just a note — do make sure your Supreme Slider is tacky and sticks to your machine bed. If it isn’t sticking, you will sew the thing to the back of your quilt. Been there, done that. Learn from my mistake.

A Supreme Slider is a very thin slippery sheet that sticks to your sewing machine bed.

A Supreme Slider really does improve your FMQ by reducing friction between your quilt sandwich and the sewing machine bed.

Sewer’s Aid

I’m sure I’ve talked about Sewer’s Aid before. It is another one of those FMQ tools that are great to have around when you need them, although you might not use it very often. There are times that I get so frustrated with my FMQ — those days when no matter what I do, my thread keeps breaking. UGH! So, what do I do??? I drop beads of Sewer’s Aid all over my spool of thread, re-thread my machine, take the bobbin out and put it back in, and then I get back to the business of FMQ.

I call this stuff liquid magic!

Sewer’s Aid is a polymer liquid you drop onto your spool of thread which then helps your thread to pass smoothly through the machine without breaking. Yup, it reduces friction for the thread just like the Supreme Slider does for your quilt sandwich.

Do you have to have all of these things to get started with Free Motion Quilting? Of course not, but I am a proponent for using tools to make sure I achieve the positive results I want. The tools, above, help you to be more successful with FMQ. Of course, there are lots of other FMQ tools out there. What are your favorites?

Thread

Have you looked at thread lately? There is so much to choose from these days. When I first started FMQ, “machine quilting” were bad words in the quilt community so we free motion quilters used invisible thread because it supposedly looked more like hand quilting (naw, it didn’t look anything like hand quilting). Eventually, FMQ became its own art form with its own super stars. Now your choices of thread are literally mind-boggling.

I guess you could call me old school because I prefer 100% long staple cotton thread for piecing and FMQ. Over the years, I’ve tried other types of threads, but I always come back to my cotton thread. I like how it quilts, how it looks, and my machines have always liked cotton thread the best.

So, what kind of thread should you use? These days, pretty much anything goes. My suggestion is to try out different types of threads and see what you — and your machine — like the best.

I do caution you, however, about using old spools of thread. Thread can weaken over time, so as economical and green as it sounds to use old spools of thread, I recommend that you steer clear of them. You don’t want you quilt to fall apart someday down the road.

Books, Websites, and More

As a former teacher and librarian, of course I have a list of helpful books for FMQ. Tehehe….

First Steps to Free-Motion Quilting

Both Angela Walters and Christa Watson have been very inspirational to me. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting both of them in person at Quilt Market.

Free Motion Quilting with Angela Walters
This was Angela’s first book. Now she has a lot of books about machine quilting.
How Do I Quilt It? Christa also has quite a few books out there on machine quilting.

Leah Day was probably the first Free Motion Quilter I ever actually saw in action on the Internet.

365 Free Motion Quilting Designs This book is out of print now so if you see it, snap it up. Years ago Leah Day challenged herself to do a new FMQ design every day for a year. On her website she has 100 of the designs as free tutorials.

These days, you can find tons of beginner FMQ videos, blogs, and how-tos online. Just make sure they are giving you quality information. There are many different sewing and crafting academies online, too, where you can take video classes. You might want to check them out.

Well, I think that’s enough introductory information today. Join me next week for more FMQ!

Take a little time for yourself and quilt.

Until next week — 

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

Quilt As Desired · Tips and Tricks · villa rosa designs

Tips for Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) on Fleece

rosecards1 Comment

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I’m sew excited you stopped by today! After doing those fall quilt tutorials a few weeks ago, I am trying to now get them all quilted before I dive into making more quilt tops (my projects seem to be multiplying daily). Do you quilt your own quilts or do you send them out to a long arm quilter? If you do your own quilting, do you hand or machine quilt?

My Machine Quilting Journey

I started machine quilting right after I learned to do patchwork almost 25 years ago. Of course, first I tried to “stitch in the ditch” but I found I couldn’t manage to actually stay in the ditch. Ho hum……

I did try a little hand quilting on my very first quilt, which I lovingly call “Big Ugly”, but my stitches were so big, I could’ve probably caught my toe in them. LOL!

Eventually I heard about a relatively newfangled thing called free motion quilting (FMQ). I was a new enough quilter that I wasn’t afraid to try it. Of course, back then free motion quilting was frowned upon and free motion quilters tried for a hand quilted look by using invisible monofilament thread to hide their machine stitching. The invisible thread back then was like thin fishing line — yuck! But I still slogged through — learning how to free motion quilt with a basic sewing machine on which I had to cover the feed dogs with tape or an index card because the feed dogs didn’t drop. And don’t forget that fishing line (today’s invisible thread is so so much better than back then)! Regardless of the challenges, I kept free motion quilting. And I was hooked!

After I had some quilts under my belt and I upgraded to a little better sewing machine where I could actually drop the feed dogs — it had a needle-down function too, I switched to using the same thread I pieced with — 100% cotton. I experimented with different threads and manufacturers for a while to see what I liked the best, or maybe more accurately what threads my sewing machine liked the best. Then I discovered King Tut variegated thread by Superior Threads. WOW! What fun it was quilting with variegated thread! I grabbed up every variegated thread spool I found, which was especially fun when I went on shop hops and quilting bus trips with my quilty pals.

The only real problem I found working with those yummy variegated threads was that sometimes I lost the thread on the quilt because the thread color matched the quilt exactly. Then it kind of looked like I skipped part of the quilting design. Oh well, nothing’s perfect.

This was when I moved back to working with solid 100% cotton threads. Now I have a small six drawer unit on wheels with all my spools of thread organized by color or type. And yes, the top drawer even has my collection of variegated threads. My drawer unit is the Helmer unit from Ikea.

Helmer image from Ikea

Free Motion Quilting on Fleece

Today I have a fun little video for you with some great tips for free motion quilting a quilt top backed with fleece fabric (you know — the fleece you make tied blankies with or comfy pj pants out of?). I began free motion quilting on fleece long before even Minky was popular as a quilt backing. I guess I was ahead of my time a little bit. Of course, back then, folks kind of looked at me funny when I showed off my free motion quilted quilts backed with fleece. Boy, they didn’t know what they were missing!

There is nothing like curling up with a fleece-backed quilt. Be aware that I don’t put batting in my fleece-backed throw quilts. Nope, not at all. Skipping the batting makes my fleece-backed throw quilts very cozy and super floppy — which I love! Have you ever tried machine quilting with fleece on the back of your quilt?

A friend of mine, Cheryl, who is a free motion long arm quilter, took my quilting on fleece idea even further — she layers 2 pieces of fleece and free motion quilts them together to make a one of a kind textured throw blanket. Maybe you’ll try this too.

Now — on with the show!

Oops! I see in the video that I actually did cross over some lines. Mea culpa! Luckily, I didn’t get any mischief happening on the back of my quilt. I should haven stuck with my first choice of orange thread instead of the medium chestnut brown, which blended in too much on the quilt top. LOL!

Go HERE for the Alassio tutorial. Or HERE to purchase the Alassio pattern.

Go HERE to read our VRQ post, Quilt as Desired, which is all about machine quilting and is part of our Basic Skills for Quilters Series on the blog.

I hope you enjoyed this little video. Now that I know how to create one and upload it, you might just find more little videos here. You’ll have to stay tuned to find out.

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

NEW June VRD Rose Card Patterns and A Free Motion Quilting Demo
Quilt As Desired · Rose Cards · Tips and Tricks · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

NEW June VRD Rose Card Patterns and A Free Motion Quilting Demo

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Welcome to another Thursday — the first Thursday in June. Summertime, right? The kids are out of school or will be soon. Life will get crazy. Fun. And more crazy.

Are you kidding? I thought it was still March.

At least, it should still be March, don’t you think?

Que sera, sera.

OH! Did you see the new Rose Cards for June yet???? As always, our VRD designers didn’t let you down.

You can order all 5 cards HERE.

And here is June’s NEW Table Runner, Cake Day. Cute, huh?

You can purchase the Cake Day pattern HERE.

Did you know you can actually join the Rose Card Pattern Club and get the new monthly Rose Cards delivered right to your mailbox every month without you having to do a thing????

If you live out of the USA, you can sign up for the digital Rose Cards, which will be delivered to your inbox without you having to do a single thing.

There are even several different Pattern Club options to consider. Cool, huh?

You can sign up for the Pattern Clubs HERE .

Another really AWESOME thing about Villa Rosa is that we create a lot of kits using our Rose Card patterns. You can find kits for this month’s new patterns AND you can find kits for lots of other favorites, too. You can visit the website HERE to see what our selection of kits are. Please remember that we add new kits all the time, with all kinds of different fabric, so make sure you stop in often to see what’s new.

A Little Bit of Free Motion Quilting and a Video Demo

How many of you are a little bit afraid of free motion quilting on your own domestic sewing machine?

Be honest!

Okay, that’s better, I see a lot of hands raised and heads nodding out there.

Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to be afraid anymore. I’ve been teaching free motion quilting (FMQ) for more than 10 years and I haven’t lost anyone yet!

Here’s my TOP 12 TIPS for FMQ:

1. Find a teacher at your local quilt shop to show you how and to guide you so you feel safe. Don’t try to teach yourself by using YouTube videos.

2. Start out small — the smaller the project the better for beginners. Potholders, table runners, place mats, wall quilts, or other small projects.

3. Start with a beginner-friendly design like wavy lines or loops. Meandering and stippling are NOT beginner-friendly.

4. Try to relax. The more tense you are, the worse your quilting will be.

5. Play music while you quilt, something with a beat. A beat will help you find your rhythm for FMQ on your own machine.

6. Keep practicing, every day if you can, even if it’s only for 10 minutes. The more you practice, the more comfortable you will feel, and the better your quilting will get.

7. Practice machine quilting with a friend. You can encourage each other and laugh together.

8. Try machine quilting gloves. There are a lot of different types of gloves out there, so you might have to try different kinds to find the ones that work for you. Machine quilting gloves will help you get a good grip on the fabric so you can move the quilt more easily when you are quilting.

9. Doodle. Doodle a lot. Practice drawing the designs before you quilt them — this builds some muscle memory between your hands and you brain.

10. Practice…….practice……..practice…….

11. Practice……practice…..practice……. (I can’t stress this one enough)

12. HAVE FUN!

Here’s a little video I put together demonstrating how to free motion quilt wiggly lines on last week’s Ying Yang Cats. Enjoy!

I hope this video inspires you to try free motion quilting some wiggly lines on your own little project.

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD