How to Outline Quilt Around Applique
 

I have been working on a quilt with quite a bit of turned-edge applique. I am almost ready to start quilting, and I would like to quilt a 1/8" outline around all the applique. However, I'm not quite sure how to mark or quilt such a narrow line, especially around curved and irregular shaped appliques.

Can anybody please share their preferred method, both for marking/measuring the 1/8" distance to quilt, and what method you use to actually sew the 1/8"?

Any help would be appreciated so much! Thanks!

Are you wanting to hand quilt or machine quilt? I do hand quilting of my applique, especially Hawaiian quilts. I'm probably a little more casual about my approach to this than others would be, but I just eyeball the width I want, no marking. As a quilter, you're probably good at eyeballing a quarter inch. Just guesstimate half of that, and there you go.

Domestic or longarm quilting?

Domestic, there's sometimes a plastic foot for the free motion/hopping foot that looks like a target (concentric red circles on a clear circular foot).

Longarm - some manufacturers sell echo feet of different diameters - same idea, you use lines on the foot to try and guide around applique or echo previous stiching.

You don't mark the quilt - you use the edge of the applique as a visual guide for the foot as you quilt.

Sorry, I'm using a domestic machine. I have the clear foot with the round ring guide lines, but I can't seem to find the right spot on the round ring to focus on. As the shape of the applique changes, I lose track of where on the guide lines I should be looking at. I haven't found a tutorial on this- probably because it should be obvious!

Thanks for your help!

Maybe using a Sharpie on top to mark what corresponds to 1/8" from the needle, then using that line as a guide to the applique' edge? You'd basically have to make your own circle on the clear foot (and mark on TOP of the foot so the ink doesn't transfer to the quilt top. You have to train your eyes to follow that line and the applique edge, NOT where the needle is.

Short of that, if you've got someone who could modify a second clear foot (toe) to be that 1/8" (grind it down) all around, kind of like a mini clear foot, then again, train yourself to watch the edge of the foot relative to the edge of the applique'.

I know it's hard - we want to watch the needle. But with echoing, you need to watch the foot and the thing you're echoing instead of watching the needle.

I would use a walking foot. It will have marks on it that you can use to get the outline even.

Now that we know it's DSM, then another question that might help ...
... are you FMQing? or straight line quilting?
Mentioning the circle foot with the lines, I am thinking you are doing FMQing.

I know what you mean about the round ring guide lines ... I used to find they pretty much made me cross-eyed!

You might want to inquire if there are any other feet available for your machine, that might make it easier. One that I have seen there are no lines, and you use the outside edge of the circle/foot up against where you want to quilt, with the distance to the needle being the constant. Different plastic circle sizes to give the different distances. For the 1/8", maybe you could use the inside of the plastic circle to the needle as your guide.

To get more comfortable with what you are doing, you might want to just try doing it on a sample sandwich. Maybe a small quilt, to make it useful!

Good Luck!

I originally wanted to do straight line quilting, because FMQ is a struggle for me. However, I couldn't find a foot (Bernina 770) that had a clear enough 1/8" line that I felt I could use to quilt around curves and other irregular shapes. That's when I decided I better give thought to learning enough FMQ to do the outline quilting, but I seem to have the same issue. The underlying issue is user error and/or lack of information on how outline quilting is usually done. Thanks for the information!

I haven't tried using a walking foot yet. I thought it would be too cumbersome to follow along curve lines, but I will give it a try, thanks!

Great ideas! I will experiment with marking my clear foot (with a water soluable pen until I get it right!). I love your idea of a mini-clear foot that had specific distances you could choose from. Wouldn't that be a really useful foot!