Today I am going to introduce you to Lea Day. She has a wonderful series of free motion patterns, lessons and videos on the internet. Please join us after the orange tangled thread and learn some basics to free motion quilting.
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In order to learn free motion quilting you have to see it done. There are so many tiny things that you have to master with hand placement, speed and the direction you chose when working. I don't have the technical skills and equipment to make video's to show you the basic steps and practice lessons. Lea Day has a wonderful site of design patterns and videos that are free. She also offers courses that you may find of interest. The unique thing about her site is that she breaks down her patterns by skill level so you have a starting point to practice. There are printable design patterns that she offers for you to practice with and use to mark your guide lines.
I have chosen for you 3 videos that using a star block. In the quilt along I have offered a saw tooth star block pattern. You may want to try this as a practice lesson using the saw tooth star.
You can find both of these patterns here:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
You can find Lea Day here:
http://www.leahday.com/...
In this first video she shows you how to mark straight lines and the technique of following them using your free motion foot. Most of the time I choose to use my walking foot for a straight line pattern like this. It always works better for me. I can do it like she is showing you and it is very good practice to work with the free motion foot for straight lines. The pattern is a wonky star pattern that she offers on her site.
Saw tooth star pattern design is more traditional straight line echo quilting.
Spirals in a Saw tooth star is shown in this video. If you have a very geometric pattern in you quilt piecing you will find that a design with motion is actually will complement the quilt block.
This is a fun site to explore and keep in your favorites for future reference. It is a good place to go when trying to figure out a quilting design for your quilt.