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Over the millennia and different cultures, people have created labyrinth designs on walls and floors. This ancient tradition endures in new buildings, parks, computer games and from today also in quilting! read more

Have you ever made your own free motion bunting?

A basic bunting design is pretty easy ‘to put up’. Before you start, add some guidelines on your fabric so you know the curve of the bunting. Use chalk or a fabric marking pen.

Begin by stitching out the arches of the bunting, freehand or with a ruler. Then go back in and add the zigzag line for the little flags. It doesn’t matter if you start the zig zag from the right or the left.

No fabric in this week and a half yard out from the declutter challenge. I’m still working through my scrap containers. I finished green and yellow/brown/orange and started on red/pink.

I’m also working on quilting the challenge piece. I haven’t come up with a name yet, but I will finish the quilting soon.

Once I finish this quilt, it’s back to quilting Remember Me.

Fabric In: .33 yards

Fabric out: 11.875 yards

Net Fabric Used: 11.545 yards

How did you do this week?

My grand parents had a smallish cherry tree in the corner of their garden and every Spring it would ‘dress itself in a pink fluffy ballgown’ and it would sprinkle pink leaves with every little breeze. I loved that tree and I told myself that I wanted one of those in my garden when I grew up. I haven’t made that come true yet, but there are plenty of other brightly colored flowers, bushes and trees in my garden. I can’t resist a bright bloom!

In the Netherlands we have saying about the month of April being fickle: ‘April doet wat hij wil’. Strong winds yesterday, pouring rain today and forecasts indicate that we will get a taste of Summer this weekend.

To celebrate sunny weather on the horizon, let’s fill our fabrics with flowers! This weeks design ‘Finnish Flowers’ is inspired by fabric designs by the Finnish company Marimekko. Their bright and bold designs always brings a smile to my face. I have two pieces of Marimekko fabric in my collection that I have found while thrifting.

The Finnish Flower free motion design ...

Last Friday was World Water Day and this next Friday is Mermaid Day, so this week’s free motion design just fits in!

The Mermaid’s Tail design is based on the clamshell grid. This design can be quilted pretty densely, but stitch it out as big as you want. You could even use a ruler to help you create the semicircular arcs. The clamshell gird is used upside down, making it look like scales. Scales on a mermaid’s tail!

Fill the clamshells with teardrops that fan out from the centre. Use as many teardrops as you like.

There ...

Nothing yet!

I started sowing flower seeds a few weeks ago but so far nothing is coming up! I have all the right set up but it just hasn’t been sunny much. I do hope to see some seedlings soon! Most of the flowers I am sowing are brightly colored and they always turn out way bigger that the package says. For instance the cosmos that should be about 2 to 3 feet high, turns into an 6 feet giant.

What is your favorite flower or greatest sowing succes?

The garden is slowly showing the first Spring flowers. The sun is showing her face more each day, but the mornings are still frosty. The hellebores have been in bloom for over a month, the hyacinths are popping up and the daffodils are almost ready to show their crowns. This time of year has always brought me joy, but this last week I had trouble to find the spark. My cat Toby went missing on Tuesday. He didn’t come home for his dinner, which is highly unusual. When it started to rain and he didn’t come running home ...

Lemon, lime, oranges or mandarin oranges.

I adore the scent of citrus! Cleaning products, candles, bath products, you name it! I love a wedge of lemon in my coke and add in all the ice cubes!

Do you have a scent or flavor that you adore?

The design Lemon Slices is based on an orange peel grid, and it creates a lovely texture which keeps your quilt nice and cuddly. The design can be stitched out with a quilting ruler if you want to. It depends on how smooth your curves turn out and what size grid you are using ...

This Orange Peel Stars design has several stitch paths to choose from. The first one is based on one of my tutorials from 2017.

Stitch path 1:

Stitch out an orange peel design first to stabilise your fabric. Best results are achieved by using a ruler, but I am known to free hand them if the shapes are small (blue lines in drawing below).

Once you have filled your block with Orange Peels, enter the space inside of the Orange Peel, starting from the left. Echo around that space in an inward spiral (green lines in the drawing below). Once ...

The weather has been different from hour to hour! Rain, grey clouds, sunshine, strong winds. Nothing dramatic, just a typical Dutch February. I have been able to do some cleaning up in the garden, that felt so good! I even managed to sow some Sweet Pea seeds.

This week’s free motion design is harder than it looks! Grab some paper and try it out.

The edge to edge design Splash creates Paint splashes or splatters by adding blobs in different sizes. When each set of blobs is completed, you travel to a new spot to add a new sequence ...

Behind the scenes I have been working on something epic! I have created an online free motion quilting course about the designs Ribbon Candy and Wishbone. The course is called Basic to Epic because it explains the classic sashing designs and then lifts them up to something even more decorative and complex.

Even though these two design may be considered basic, they are anything but. Learning the core structure of these designs will help you identify the cause of your wonky lines. You will learn how to tweak the structures to create any other variation.

Even experienced quilters see their ...

Most of the grid-based designs I have shared with you are stitched out horizontally. I have a vertical one for you today, which makes it more suitable for domestic machine quilters compared to longarm quilters. If you want to use this on a large project on a longarm, you would have to advance the quilt after stitching just a few hearts. That would take up way too much time. So, if you would like to use this design on a longarm, maybe consider turning your project 90 degrees and stitch it out on its side???

The Row of Hearts design ...

What is the weather like where you live? We are having a windy week with a few drops of rain forcasted. Spring is slowly bringing forth flowers; the purple crocuses where the first to show up, with the white hellebores being a close second. It is still wise to bring an umbrella when going outside.

The free motion umbrella design is based on a clamshell grid. You can mark out a square grid or a series of semicircles. You could use a quilting ruler for the big semicircles if you want.

Before you go of and watch the YouTube video ...

How many hearts would you like on your quilt?

Double up on your hearts-quota with this weeks design which would work really well on any Valentine’s Day quilt.

If your border or sashing in your quilt is a bit higher, you have enough space to add an extra heart inside of your Ribbon Candy Hearts. Your design will spread out bit more because the design needs to be wider for the extra hearts to have enough room. The lines might not touch each other anymore. Try to keep an equal distance to your previous line by looking at the ...

The last email to the students of the Ribbon Candy workshop has just been sent out. The workshop has now closed. The online class was a huge success with more than 500 students participating. We had 4 days of short lessons on the free motion design Ribbon Candy. Lots of people left comments and shared photos of their practice pieces, especially on the lesson with the design variations.

This weeks free motion quilting design Ribbon Candy Hearts was part of the online lesson on variations. If you were in the class, you may recognize the video.

Ribbon Candy Hearts is ...

This design is a bit of a challenge!

The Wishbone variation Hearts Dance adds a bounce after each second teardrop / loop. This creates a row of dancing hearts. This design is more challenging because you have to ‘count and bounce’ and also because you have to keep the design upright.

This patterns is stitched out pretty narrow in this sample, but in the narrow red sample below, you can see that it looks gorgeous too in a less high border.

The teardrops don’t really have to touch to form a heart, you can space them wider apart.

Play around ...

Before we delve into the Clamshell Heart design, I wanted to let you know that the doors of the Ribbon Candy Workshop are closing soon. The first lesson will be released on this next Monday 22 January and the last lesson will be on Thursday 25 January 2024.

This course is free to attend, it won’t cost you anything!

Anyone who can free motion quilt is welcome! Even those who want to learn but haven’t started yet can draw along. I will teach you some basics of the Ribbon Candy design, a few variations and 3 ways to ...

When does a fascination become a specialization?

Two years ago I started adding to my collection of Ribbon Candy variations. Coming up with new versions of the traditional design quickly became my favorite ‘puzzle’ to do. The fascination expanded to the other sashing classic, the Wishbone design. I have shared a few of the variations on these two traditional designs over the last couple of months.

Last week I shared the Swirl Point design which has gotten a lot of attention on Instagram since then. The sped up video was viewed over 31.000 times, which is magical and unbelievable ...

Let’s add some hearts to our classic quilting designs!

I have selected several classic free motion quilting designs and I each week I will share a variation of that design where hearts are ‘onboarded’. So when Valentine’s day approaches you will have a set of patterns to choose from. Put that quilt together for your special person.

This hot pink Orange Peel Heart sample is stitched out on a 1″ grid that I premarked using a template and ‘iron off’ pounce powder. I love the fact that you can iron the chalk off and that it doesn’t ...