Dream to Achieve – Walking Foot Quilting Ideas

Hi!

Today I thought I would share some Dream to Achieve – Walking foot quilting ideas.

It is such an exciting time – you have cut, pieced and stitched all the pieces together and you have basted the finished top, batting and backing and then you think EEk how will I quilt this?

Quilting design is such an individual thing but I think the following things are important to consider:

1. Does the quilt design lend itself to heavy quilting or selective quilting?

2. Heavily quilted quilts will not be as ‘cuddly’ as a less quilted one.

3. There are so many lovely quilting designs available but does your favourite one suit the quilt you are working on. eg would you put ‘feathers’ on a sharp,geometric design?

4. Will the chosen design ADD to the overall quilt design or will it ‘swamp’ it?

You really need to take a step back, breathe and look closely at your quilt top and fabrics involved and then consider your options.  You also need to consider your quiltig experience – if you have never tried Free Motion Quilting, I would suggest you start on smaller projects like placemats. to perfect your technique.

Today I will be looking at quilting with your walking Foot.  Many think you can only sew straight lines with a Walking Foot, but with a little thought , many options are available to the quilter.

If we look at the original Dream to Achieve quilt, you can see the following – all done with a walking foot:

1.  Following fabric design lines:

2.  Using a shape to make a template:

3.  Following fabric design curves:

4.  Choosing overall to compliment the fabric design – turtle/water

Now to my current Quilt Along Quilt:

I think I will use the circles and squares shapes in the first fabric, the wavy lines from the stripe and maybe do something with the butterflies!

We have already stitched in the ditch around all sashing and so we have smaller blocks all secured and ready to quilt!  I will use the small areas to show you some options that you may like to try!

How to Sew Straight Lines with your Walking Foot

If you want to sew a line eg from corner to corner, the easiest way to mark your line is with masking tape.  Just remember to place it just to the side of the required line to allow for the stitching:

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I will now add another diagonal to complete this square!

How to sew more than one line with your walking foot:

Once you have your straight line, it is easy to add more by

a) adding more tape at required distance OR

b) using the width of your walking foot and moving your needle  OR

c)  using a quilting guide.

With your walking Foot, you would have seen a piece like this:

You just lay it across the slit at the back

and press down until it clicks into place

Now you just slide it across to the width you want and sew with the guide following along the straight line you started with!

So I am setting my gauge at the same width as the finished sashing so it will be easy to see – I quite like the way it looks! I started at one edge using the same method as in the previous post.

Now of course you can add more lines if you want to – I have decided to leave it like this.

How to use the  width of the walking foot:

I will do another one now using the width of the walking foot to sew around the edge of the square and then I will freehand some lines across and down:

 

In this one I will sew a diagonal using the tape and then, using the width of the walking foot, spiral around each triangle:

How to sew a 6 pointed STAR with your walking foot:

Maybe you would like a star!  Divide all sides in half and the right and left sides into quarters.

This is sewn in one motion, starting and ending on the left side.

How to sew a more WONKY STAR with your walking foot:

Maybe you would prefer a less structured star! Divide the top in half and the sides into thirds (approx as this will be determined by how wonky you want it) and start and finish in the left bottom corner.

How to sew a SQUARE SPIRAL with your walking foot:

Now I’m thinking a spiral – let’s start with the square and using our guide set at the same width as before:

How to sew a CIRCULAR SPIRAL with a walking foot:

Now to try a circular spiral!

Trace a circle that fits the space (Im using a plate and tracing it using a sliver of soap)

I will start sewing from the centre at the top:

Now for the long blocks, I’m going to do wavy lines, so I will roll the quilt from both sides (like we did here) and just wave my way from one edge to the other

For the feature stripe, I am going to some butterfly shapes!

I hope this has given you some ideas for quilting your quilt using a walking foot!  Don’t forget to share a photo in the Facebook Album of Flickr to be in the next Gift Pack Draw!  Great going!  You are nearly finished – just the binding to go – well done!

Until next time

Nanny xx