If your board doing a quilt... others will be board looking at the quilt,
especially judges.
Balance not perfection, beauty is not perfect.
Judges will notice the border/binding and backing even more than your piece
work. Break up one large border feathering with caviots (diamonds or swirls) to
make it interesting.
When stitching "rays" always stitch the center, then the outer two, then the
inner lines.
Decide the width of your "echo" stitching, by using the foot, either inner or
outer circle width from the needle.
When quilting, do your "free motion" stitching FIRST, then do your ditch work
frame stitching... this is opposite of what most have been taught, but keeps
quilt from puckering.
Stitch from the center out on blocks, and always one continuous line following
back to the beginning over stitches, why using an embroidery ball needle is
important, it won't cut threads like quilting sharp needles do.
If you want your quilt to really stand out in a competition... RED
Red draws attention, use if you want them to notice your quilt.
Purple means royalty
Green means Healing
Blue means speaking truth (also indigo)
Orange means creativity
Yellow means focus
Pink means Gods love, spiritual
White means pure or pain in life
Gold means focus, purity, no anger
When your the quilter, ask the customer what shows up for her. It's different
with everyone, if she notices a color or block, make sure that you 'don't' touch
that area, let that area 'loft' and stand out.
Stitch down the remaining areas. We had a quilt of 3 main colors, and half the
room noticed the green the other half noticed the rust.
If your taking a quilt to a quilter, make sure you 'tell her' what stands out for you, and let her realize how you want it quilted.
Remember the 2/3 rule, when you have a 9-patch, a churn dash, a log cabin,
doesn't matter what the pieced block is, you can visually divide that into 1/3s,
the pieced work is 1/3, on a 9 patch the background squares within those 9, 4
are background, so let the 5 focus squares pop. When feather stitching a log
cabin, stitch on the dark side to highlight. NEVER quilt the center square of a
log cabin block, that is your focal point.
The 2" sashing around your quilt body before your outer border, this area should
be very lightly quilted, nothing heavy, let it loft to frame the quilt.
Rule of Thumb... any space larger than a thumb, should have some quilting in it,
even corner squares (usually in your sashing) can be stitched either diagnally,
or X stitch the square. If you put diamonds in the sashing, you can stitch in
ditch to let them loft.
Feathers should ALWAYS stitch "clockwise" direction, if making waves of feathers
or circles of feathers or feathers following around the border, have them
flowing clockwise. And ALWAYS give your feathers a border, draw a line away
from your stem line, and run your loops out to that line to create your feather.
Also, leave a little border between the feather and the 'ditch' of the pieced
block, this allows the feather to pop/stand out. When creating feathers use 3
sizes in the loops, this is called Frackle/a repeated pattern. When doing
circles, the largest circle divided by 1/3s this is the sizes of the 3 circles
you should use for fill space (which is stipple). Circles always go to the
left, never back and forth like a figure 8. And if your circle isn't perfect,
do NOT restitch it 2-3 times trying to make it a round circle, just move on.
ALWAYS stop at a beginning point, never the middle of a circle or feather loop.
And always work back to the beginning before the next loop.
When using a contrasting thread or varegated thread, you must be more accurate.
Blended threads are more forgiving.
These are tips from Sharon Shamber class on long arm quilting, was a very full long 2 day class, great ideas.