January Roundup: Beginners Guide to Free Motion Quilting - Roundup
February Lesson: Thread
February Lesson: Thread Roundup
March Lesson: Choosing Batting & Fabric for Free Motion Quilting
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I have never loved to practice at anything much (although I like to practice eating chocolate a lot!) When I discovered FMQ I found I could spend hours practicing various designs. This post came about because I wanted to make a group of samplers - based on 5 classic shapes which are used over and over again in free motion quilting.
This is not a how too post - I hope that this post encourages you to explore how many designs you can come up with with using 'just straight lines'. "Just straight lines' is a phrase I heard over and over again in the January Lesson. This sampler shows that using 'just straight lines' can make a lot of different quilting patterns. Some are simple - others are more complex and time consuming - but you should never say 'just straight lines' again.
I started thinking I would aim for 40+ different designs but it soon seemed obvious it would be very easy to hit 100. Warning - this is a long post. Many of these patterns are self explanatory. Where another quilter has given a tutorial or published the design I have provided a link.
The sampler was an amazing exercise for me and I feel like I have discovered many more possible designs to use in future quilts. I quilted many of these designs on the sampler for the first time. I would love to hear if you discover any ideas you don't see here. I would also encourage anyone who wanted to expand their FMQ horizons to do a similar sampler for themselves.
