Machine Quilting, Not Free-Motion...Tips?
 

I'm looking for interesting patterns for machine quilting with nothing more than a walking foot. I have an older, slant needle machine that does not work well with free motion quilting, so I do not want to do that and I don't want to send my quilt to a long-armer. I know...there's stitch-in-the-ditch and following the contours, but perhaps you've seen something more interesting. If so, please share. Thanks!

~ C

When I was using my vintage machine I found I couldn't do much in the middle of a queen sized quilt, and so I typically used various types of grids and gentle curves and then did something fancier around the border. Orange peel and clam shell would be example of doable curves. Pumpkin seed slightly fancier but nice border for an orange peel center.

Keep in mind the ideas of echoing and repeating and multiple passes, so you can have a chain of squares that takes a little more effort, but then you can echo that with a zig zag (slightly easier) and then straight lines on either side of that. Then you can separate out and either introduce a different design element or keep repeating the original set.

Thanks Iceblossom...good ideas. I am planning to quilt a larger quilt, so I'll keep those thoughts in mind. Zig-zag...do you mean the decorative stitch on my machine? I have a lot of different cams that I could use for special interest.

~ C

I really meant echoing the squares with a zig-zag, but we can also use fancy stitches. By the way, typically in quilting like this you do as long a movement as you can, so for a single chain of squares you would go the diagonal of two squares, leave the needle down, pivot to the next direction, doing half the lines in one pass. Then you complete the lines in a second pass. You don't typically want to make two zig zags to make the squares, or out line each square individually.

My modern machine does the serpentine stitch and it is a wonderful solution for making a grid a bit fancier and will be my go-to solution for any standard gridded quilt. I just used it for the first time last year, but one of my Tuesday quilting ladies uses it on almost all her donation quilts and it looks good on all of them so far!

You can achieve the serpentine look manually, but in the picky part of my brain, I'd still have to draw it out and actually follow lines and not be able to do it free hand.

This was my project, the batting was a little thicker than I wanted and the fabric came in a bag from the thrift store so I didn't quite have the yardage I wanted... and I should have relaxed the wavy stitch a bit more to echo the fabric but had started in the middle of the quilt and decided to keep it as it is...

Maybe this will give you some inspiration. Leah Day has some tutorials on walking foot quilting.

https://leahday.com/pages/walking-foot-quilting-basics

Here's a scan to better show what I was saying, am looking for links/resources --

I use stencils. By drawing with a diapering ink on the block where I want my work to be, give me the best design work ever. There are so many different stencils available that you can pick and choose what is right for your quilt. For me I use mostly intermediate level stencils or an easy one. Those are what I am comfortable. LQS usually carry a good variety.

Ahh...spellcheck...LOL. I was wondering what, "diapering ink," was. How, exactly, do you use that? :D

Thanks for the great tips. I do have a couple of stencils that I haven't tried yet. Maybe I'll go shopping for a few more. That's always fun!

~ C

Oh...OK...a larger zig-zag. That looks cool. I have used a random, serpentine before, (Not echoing. The stitching lines don't line up perfectly with one another,) and it actually turned out better than I was hoping for. It was pretty easy to do on a larger quilt too. You can also do a serpentine, but, "bump into," the other line, creating a leaf effect.

~ C

Thanks Krisb...Leah Day is a wonderful teacher, IMHO. I'll head over there.

~C

I've found some great walking foot quilting ideas from Jacquie Gering's book WALK and she now has a second book called WALK 2.0. Lots of brilliant ideas!

Sugaridoo has a free ebook, "101 Ideas for Quilting" that are done with a walking foot. You can get the ebook here:

https://sugaridoo.com/101-ideas-for-...line-quilting/

I, too, have used stencils with my walking foot. I come from a hand quilting background, so lots of stencils here. Most are gently curved enough that the designs are still manageable with a walking foot.

I'm new to anything other than SID. I have discovered painter's tape in different widths helps as a guide--but don't sew over the tape (didn't know my first timehttps://cdn.quiltingboard.com/images/smilies/frown.png). My machine has a serpentine stitch that I recently fell in love with. It is an automated stitch meant for darning on my old Bernina. I use stitch width 2 of 4 and length is the same, 2 of 4. It makes a nice gentle wave.
I have used the washable markers to draw stitching lines with my rulers. They didn't come with instructions, so I searched youtube for videos. I like one ruler that makes a spiral pattern...https://www.google.com/search?q=quil...2XyXMGWIbGdGoM

I used it in the corner on last quilt.
Here's a pic of serpentine and a spiral that I've done. I will also follow lines in the fabric.

I second the Jacqui Gering suggestion- in addition to her books, she also has two Craftsy/Bluprint classes that may be available when Craftsy comes back on-line in September. I highly recommend them if you can get them.

Rob

I have both of Jacquie Gering's books and they have great ideas on straight stitching with your walking foot. Check your local library and see if they have them or Leah Day's book, after I checked them out I decided they were worth purchasing.

Here's a little (36" x 36") quilt I quilted with a walking foot. Hope the quilting shows up for you. First I made a criss-cross, then I echoed the quadrants. It was fun but took some time. Sorry the photo ended up side-ways. Not sure how that happened!

Jacquie Gering also has some youtube videos that you might find interesting. It will give you an idea of her work before you sign up for blueprint or purchase a book.
bkay

I bought the book Walking Foot Quilting Designs by Melissa Marginet. It has 57 different blocks for the centers of a quilt and 10 patterns for borders. You can get very unique designs by using straight and curvy lines.