This is helps answer the question of, "Can I quilt on a Grace Frame and still do nice quilting like the people that have longarm machine frames?"
Hi
Oh, yes! Don't they have beautiful feathered wreaths and designs in those magazines? Most of those quilts that you see are NOT done using computerized designs, but are just made from quilters that have taken the time to get more quilting experience. That can be YOU in a few
months or years. Sometimes taking a quilting class helps, but the great teacher is MORE QUILTING! Yes, that's how we get quilting experience and you are going to have to find new ways besides loopy meandering and stippling. Most experienced quilters move past those methods to more unique fill patterns. But the Feathers. YOU can make beautiful feathers! Yes, even with your Juki. Large or small. The reason professionals get such good results with their quilts are really because of the machine they use but the amount of quilts that they've been able
to work on in their career. Lots of experience makes better quilts, so quilt whatever you can quilt, and keep it up!
Here's how to do feathers in a small quilting throat space. Judge the size of your block. Are you doing a HUGE feathered wreath in the center of a wholecloth quilt? Like a wreath that is 3 feet long? (Yes, you can do this, too.) Or are you filling an 8" block? The same holds true for both. Draw your circle that will be the 'vine' for the wreath. You can use a stencil (where you use pounce powder or a purple dissolvable pen), or you can use a dinner plate (I keep a few different
plates of my favorite circle sizes in my ruler drawer), or a compass. Anything to make a good circle. None of us can usually do a large wreath without rolling our quilt a few times to finish the wreath. But you do need to quilt that center circle first. We'll call this the Center Vine of your wreath. After it's marked, then sew around the center circle vine, stopping your machine with the needle DOWN when you can't go any further and gently rolling the quilt, and then finish the
center line. Now you have a nice circle in the center of your block. You can complete the wreath in a few different ways. I will usually mark the outer circle where I want my feathers to stop, and also the inner circle where I want the feather to stop - just to get both sides symmetric. But if you want your outer circle to go to the edge of the block all the way around, then you don't need to mark that. (Usually I take a thread spool and draw a purple line around it on my quilt to mark the center of my wreath where I don't want quilting. I have plenty of those 'templates' on hand. :-)
Do you want to quilt the entire center of the wreath with feathers or leaves, etc? There are so many different designs that you can make a wreath from, but the Feathers are my very favorite. Rosebuds and leaves make a beautiful wreath, also. And little swirly designs around a center vine. So many different ways are available, but making feathers takes some freehand practice. So, you can fill in the center of your wreath first, and you may not even have to roll your quilt for that smaller center area. But you will probably have to roll your quilt to get the outer wreath. Quilt your feathers around the top edge as far as you can go, gently roll the quilt, quilt the next part of your wreath, gently roll, finish up the outer feather. OR - you can quilt the outer part of your wreath as far as you can go, follow the center spine back and quilt the center of the wreath as far as you can - all without rolling the quilt. Once you've quilted what you can, then roll the
quilt and do the same for the next part of the wreath. In this way, you can work your way around the quilt without ever taking your needle out of the quilt. You may have to roll your quilt several times, but you are still quilting that same wreath. Don't be discouraged by the size
of your quilting area. The smaller space that you can work in, the easier it is to handle your machine.
Now, here's a great hint for those of you that want to get past just loops or stippling and would like some more 'Fill' ideas. I found this blog from a quilter that decided to post a new fill pattern every single day for an entire year! 365 new 'fill' ideas. She shows a video for each day and shows you how to do the fill pattern. (I actually took pieces of paper, folded them so that I'd have 12 blocks per page, and drew them out one at a time as she quilted them.) I numbered each small
block, and wrote the name of her design. I punched holes in these, put them in a 3-ring binder, and now have my own 'Fill Design Book' that I can turn to when I get stumped and want something different around my applique or other things that I need quilt filling for. Some you will
love, and some you probably won't enjoy stitching, but they are NEW IDEAS. So, you can check out this link
http://freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/2009/08/365-days-of-free-motion-rules-and\
.html
and read about it. If you see the Tabs at the top, go to POSTED ORDER, and you can click on the designs starting at day one. I'm only 2/3 through the designs, drawing each one out, but I've used several of them over and over on my quilts when I wanted a new fill pattern. Give it a try.
If you are looking for a Grace machine frame follow this link:
http://www.kathyquilts.com/Grace-Machine-Frames/
Happy Quilting!
Kathy
www.kathyquilts.com
