Episode 102 - Design Ideas

well hello today we'll look at design ideas where we get them and how we decide what to put on a quilt we'll discuss specific techniques like stitching in the ditch outlining block patterns and freehand feather designs and see the best way to use each one and Pam Clarke shows us how to set designs in the quilt using stencils so stay tuned well hello today we'll look at design ideas where we get them and how we decide what to put on a quilt we'll discuss specific techniques like stitching in the ditch outlining block patterns and freehand feather designs and see the best way to use each one and Pam Clarke shows us how to set designs in the quilt using stencils so stay tuned Linda's long arm quilting is made possible by Gamal quilting machine company bringing quality innovation and service to quilters around the world for over a quarter of a century by yli making decorative threads that help you unleash your imagination by Statler stitcher providing automation to enhance and expand your long arm quilting business and by hobbs bonded fibers today I'm going to tell you about some different sources for design ideas and inspiration then we're going to put those ideas to work by applying specific techniques where they'll do the most good but for ham Clark is here to demonstrate her great stenciling technique welcome Pam hi Linda thank you it's such an honor to be here I am so excited to see what you have to to show the viewers and I know they can use this as on their home machines as well as long armors exactly that's what's so nice about this technique it's nuts just not for the long arm use it's for everybody that does machine quilting and even some of the hand filters can use it Oh terrific but anyways what it is the reason why I started this is because when I started long arm quilting I could never get a pre-cut stencil you know I tiny minds beautiful pre-cuts oh yes okay and then I pick him to my block and they wouldn't fit so it's always reciting and doing yeah that's a lot of work right and so I thought well what if I put some lines down and use them as a reference and build around it okay all right so what I have is I have these two stencils then the only thing you have to know about this is you have to know like seven basic designs really simple I shake I can do that okay I know you could do it okay and the seven basic designs are like you're easy aha you know Alfred Linda like penmanship okay clamshells easy back to have certain loops loops are we can do rows we can do those hearts I can do Daisy mm-hm wait I could do that swirls I think oh these are great these are these yes continuous curve now this one here is real important right because this is what's gonna speed up our quilting and then we build around that oh okay so let me show you the tools that I use to mark my quilt what I do is I have a pounce pad okay there is a pounce fit okay and I like to use blue chalk because I can see it uh-huh now for your viewers today I'm gonna chalk it pretty heavy so you can see it but normally it's not chuck this heavy okay that does the Chuck come off you know well always worry about marking your right and that is you really want to make sure you always want to test test fit I test any product I really do it's so important but if you happen to chalk it this heavy just a mild detergent we'll take it off okay so we don't normally do just so we can see it just so you can see it I actually dust it very lightly because I'm just using it as a reference okay do you pounce it on there no no no I know what'll happen it'll blow off oh yeah and you know it's called a pounce pad I know don't pounce it okay okay all right so what you're gonna do is you're gonna take this the stencil let's start with the straight-line stencil all right and I've already marked it on my border now what if it doesn't come out even I I mean that would help me it happens to me all the time I have different sizes on lines in here if I have basically I probably use the two inch lines stencil more than anything okay all right so what I do have already marked it mm-hmm about three quarters of the way okay right and here's where my border is and if you can see this I have it in it's just off about a quarter of the USA and Syria line is there and is often just a little right so what you don't want to do is you don't want to keep pouncing all the way across oh you'd end up uneven right okay so what I do is I just take this and I always like to Pat this just because I know there's chalk coming out okay all right and I'm gonna do one not mark them all oh no oh I see slide that I slide it oh you're fudging huh the most factor pledge factor which we do a lot yes and then I have it yes like you can't tell that it's off to the action of an inch you know all right and then the other one this one is great because it doesn't matter what size your block is all right so this one I'm gonna mark right here okay I'm gonna lay it down mm-hmm now on these stencils that I have now not all stencil come this way okay but there's a rough side and a smooth sigh I like to use the rough site up because it acts as an abrasive and it's gonna pull the chalk out of the pad I see alright so it's gonna take it and kind of scrape it across mm-hmm what you do is you line it up on the squares just like that okay and if it's not perfectly squared oh you're gonna fudge it yeah okay fetch again you know cuz we don't always get those perfect squares up all right that's what's really nice about this because you can't you line it up and you always have you always have the middle you have right in the center with that oh then you're gonna dust it across like so Wow so that could even just help you find the center if you want to just find the center oh you got to find the sooner it is a great tool to have all right and I like to kind of rub my hand across it because I don't want this chalk to go down into my hook mechanism Oh could it be harmful to your machine it hasn't been harmful to my machine and I've been using this technique for about 12 years well then I'm okay so but I do want to be really careful I don't ever want to take any chances cuz I love my machine yes okay yes and I want to take care of itself so make sure okay clean it out if you happen to get around the foot of the machine you just blow it out a little bit of candy or air compressor okay all right and then I have this little block right here and I'm gonna show you how easy that is to line up okay I'm just gonna lay the stencil down very same thing same to any size that's terrific Dustin alright now I'm gonna show you how the technique works I need to draw it up for you okay so here is my stencil right here and I'm gonna show you that how it works you're gonna start in this left hand corner because when we bring our thread up we don't have to stop right right okay and then I'm gonna create like a clamshell to the middle okay keeping it evenly spaced all the way alright and then I'm gonna do the same shape all the way up to here keeping it inside this line right here all the way up okay down this way oh yeah and what's really nice is that I don't do a lot of ditch quilting okay so it's really important that my design fills up the block yes yes because I don't why those goofy seams yeah okay no all the way around II and I could see you could get good at this yes yes and you know and now do you worry about all the lines in the middle I do okay yes one thing you want to do when you first start this obviously I'm gonna be using a little bit worker threat today but normally I'm gonna use a thread that matches my background as close as possible that makes it safer yeah and then you want to make sure that you tried to stop one stitch from the center so you don't go through it again right I don't want a big buildup okay good all right so are you ready to see how yes we want to see you so how about if we start with our with our border border okay and I'm gonna do the ease and the l's and now it's really easy to remember and ease in the LS because on the lines here you're gonna put an e in the empty L on the line that's gonna make it so it comes out even so when we get into your corner here you might want to put up a cell okay mm-hmm pull my thread up there you go and I do a type I don't do the tapping what I do is I kind of want my stitches back and forth when I start so I kind of stitch in place a little bit okay I do it every goes and an L on the line now when anytime you try to do this without the lines what's gonna happen it's gonna be like your handwriting uh-huh and they're gonna start leaning a little bit oh yeah you don't want them to lean they would no different than you know you wouldn't have an even design right what I'm gonna do now I'm gonna do a reverse clamshell okay this is very easy to see the middle of it but you could actually slide the stencil over and get another beginner okay but once you learn the technique you can actually I an inch do a little loop in there that's the loop design which rests in the air okay that is so cute Pam and what a nice design for a border oh yeah there's our fashion ideas for fashions we always need yeah we think this really speaks you can see this would just go so fast it's hard for me to watch other people quilt because I don't want to be there alright now I'm gonna do I'm gonna come up to this block and I'm gonna show you how to do this one design that I drew up on the paper mhm but what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go from here into this block without breaking your thread continuous okay because if you look at this block our lines are already there already there right okay so I'm going to bring this up and lock my stitches keep I'm gonna come down to the middle up to that straight line anything that you do don't thing I just know I'm gonna come over into here oh okay and you can always add a different shape of either like maybe this world or a heart shape and I can actually come down to that one and continue into that block and you so then you just go back the other direction reverse exactly amazing if you know what it's really fun and it takes the pressure off of you of being so exact time well it just goes so much faster guys and it goes up the block well hello today we'll look at design ideas where we get them and how we decide what to put on a quilt we'll discuss specific techniques like stitching in the ditch outlining block patterns and freehand feather designs and see the best way to use each one and Pam Clarke shows us how to set designs in the quilt using stencils so stay tuned Linda's long arm quilting is made possible by Gamal quilting machine company bringing quality innovation and service to quilters around the world for over a quarter of a century by yli making decorative threads that help you unleash your imagination by Statler stitcher providing automation to enhance and expand your long arm quilting business and by bration is the community of talented quilters all around me some of the places I look to get ideas include quilt books not all of the quilting shows in books so it's easy for you to go through the books and see which ones are going to show you off the quilting so I'll be sure you look for that when you're getting the books quilt patterns there's myriad of quilt patterns and they have all kinds of designs that you can that are inspirational to you and there's roll patterns so you can do your pantographs on those there's also portfolio this is really important that you take pictures of the quilts that you do your students are going to love looking through your portfolio at some of their friends quilts and some of the wonderful work that you've done also quilt shows when you go to a quilt show now instead of just looking at the color you'll be looking at the quilting get as close as you can and take pictures so that you can take those home and put those in a book and have those as part of your inspiration these are good starting places you can take these resources as inspiration and let your artistic talent and imagination run from there and now that we've got some good ideas and fresh inspiration let's put them to work and see how we decide where specific techniques will work best this is a delectable mountain quilt and as I looked at it I can see a lot of sharp points so I thought in the areas around the center it would be a good idea to put a softer feather and to really bring that feather out and make it the focal point of what what the quilt is all about I decided to punto the feather so I want to show you since this is already done I want to show you what that process was like first of all you use a wash away thread which is a dissolvable thread in water on the top and then a thread that matches your prod top on the bottom or in the bobbin area and you do your design work just with the batting and the top then you remove it from the machine and you can do that all at once just like you do the quilt so it's all one big piece of batting you take it off and you carefully cut around the batting design so you cut away everything that you don't want to stand out you can see partially cut here and then completely cut so you still have your wash away thread then you mount it back on with your lining and your regular batting just as if you hadn't done all of that work and I have another sample here I just wanted to show you once your quilt is complete you can just really spray down one side this side is completely sprayed down and you can see all of that wash away thread is gone this side I haven't wet yet so you can still see the washed away thread so you go right back over that same stitching but it will disappear so here we have the wash away thread and I'm going to go around this feather again there we go bring up my bobbin there's a lot of thicknesses in there and so your machine is going to have to go through all those thicknesses because you've got two layers of batting a top and a lining in there here we go just around the very same stitching I am going to come in this because on the other side I did a little feather on the inside and this is just freehand and when you do feathers you just sort of think of a half of a heart as you're doing them and of course you practice a lot so that you feel very comfortable when you get to the machine and as you go around these trapunto areas your machine wants to stay right on that edge on that very same stitching it just sort of falls into that little ditch we've got the top part there done around here and as I come back I'm thinking that I'm laying the feather down on the stem it doesn't stand straight out it lays down on the on the stem and it often is a good idea for beginners to think of the heart of 1/2 of a heart as your feather shape now your feathers will change shape as you do more feathers to kind of grow with you but when you're first beginning to do those feathers I'm going out to the stem out here the second time reaching out and coming back sort of in a half of a heart shape so I've completely gone around that trip pun code area now while I'm here I'm gonna go out and echo about a quarter of an inch away from that design and I'm going to stop right there and cut that thread get that out of the way there we go continue with my quarter inch now it's really important that I don't get too close in this because I'm going to come back in that area and put a very tiny little design inside of this trapunto needs to be raised up so we have to close to the trapunto to make a contrast so we have very flat and then the trapunto is very raised so this alone wouldn't do it I need to get in there and really do a tighter design so I'm going to inside of that echo between the trapunto and the echo design I'm going to do some little swirls now there's all kinds of designs that I have found work very very well to put in between the echo and the trapunto this one I just chose this little swirl because it looks very delicate and dainty you can also use like a zigzag design that gives you a totally different look now from there I would continue to echo and when I'm echoing there's some areas as I'm going around that I simply won't get back to that area because I can't come back through here I don't have enough room as I'm not going to come back through so I'm going to while I'm there continue to finish that area and I just call it a bounce you just sort of bounce bounce and then get over into your next area like that bounce and back bounce and then we'll go right over to the next area so you complete the area while you're there cuz you're not gonna pass that way again so you have to fill it up while you're there and don't be afraid to just keep quilting and filling those up keep them as curved as possible sometimes in these areas if you don't think of bouncing and following the sides you get very straight and so you lose the shape of what you are doing so you really want to keep those going okay we'll just keep bouncing and that going all the way around now on this side all I have to do is like one echo there you can see that and then start bouncing again to feel that in and continue like that until that whole area is filled up wasn't that fun so I also as I looked at this design I thought well it is delectable mountains and there are a lot of points so I kind of wanted to keep some of that mountain effect going so on the edges here I thought what would be good I would just use my ruler and I do have an extended base on which gives me a nice flat area around here sort of like when you're when you put your machine your other base on your machine to help you when you have an open arm and then you put your other part on so that you can use that to help you with your tools so now I'm just gonna go up to the center and back down you say I can do this in a continuous fashion and I did it on the green part as well and just back down to my scene so up in the middle and then back down to my seam up in the middle and back down to my seam and I would continue around now to really make this stand up and give me a contrast I needed to fill in these little mountains and I just follow a seam back over and down to get to the next area and this is called a pattern meandering and you just keep your stitches as even as possible just follow these up and back and then each one trying not to break my thread now you could stop and start many many times but if you can figure out a way to do it and just go back in a seam that you've already been in then it saves you a lot of time and you don't have a lot of stuff that starts on your quilt see this is just back and forth I'm keeping it as horizontal as I can and making sure that my spacing is about the same on all of that so I'd go all the way around the quilt and finish that and you can see how that just raises that up and I love that now in the corner since when we're with mountains I was thinking of stars so out here in this wonderful open area I decided I would use the star template and have all kinds of wonderful tools like this that we can use now it also has a circle on it so I'm going to go around the circle first and I just hold my tool next to the foot like this as I go around it and I'm gonna a course have to stop which is nice to have this regulated stitch so that you can stop and readjust you see my fingers are next to the template so that gave me a perfect circle right where I wanted it now turn the Machine off and put the star on it just slips on like that on the foot and place it back here and then again keeping the foot right next to the template you're actually using that template as your guide and your left hand is working hard keeping that template nice and flat and there we have our star so now we have a star in a circle which is wonderful and we're going to go ahead and feather that star now when you're feathering a star think of the points I'm gonna lean lean and the inside point I'm gonna go straight and then Eileen Eileen and the outside point is going to be straight and I'm leaning these feathers toward the outside points but you see the inside point in the outside points are all straight so it's lean lean straight lean lean straight and you know quilters talk to themselves all the time so I know I don't sound strange at all you have to say things to yourself and give yourself encouragement all the time and if you do that I know you can do this too so now well it's also put a feathered wreath around here now let's do the inside at this point but you just start here and again with those feathers half of the heart here we go completing the feathers all the way around on the inside of this and I bet you didn't think you could do a feathered wreath without a pattern but you know it is so easy if you practice this on paper for a while I know you can do this it's all it takes is a little practice always have a paper and pencil beside your bed cuz you're gonna get inspiration in the middle of night you have to wake up and just do those feathers right and your doodling is gonna change too because you're going to be doing useful doodling now instead of scribbling when you're talking on the phone now I'm going to roll the quilt up and show you how to stitch in the ditch in the middle so now with our extended base on I'm going to show you how to stitch in the ditch so I've already gone partially around this square and I'm going to start by getting some little stitches here to secure my threads right on top of the same stitches that I ended with and then I place my ruler you see a quarter of an inch away from that scene and then as I turned my machine on I can just pull that machine right along in that seam now my left hand is really good and you see this right hand if you watch that right hand all it did is doing is propelling the machine it is not controlling the machine at all it's just propelling it the left hand decides where you're going now I've completed the stitch in the ditch there and any time you have embroidering you're gonna have lots of embroidery on your quilts more and more all the time don't be afraid to go around that embroidery if you're gonna go in there and stipple just go right ahead and get right around that embroidery and go around and outline it now on the rest of these little squares specially on this ecru color what's really going to show I wanted to make this Center the focal point of the quilt with the feathers just surrounding it and showing it off and so again I'm doing a pattern meandering but I'm keeping it in the corners at a diagonal and then when I get back on the sides I'm keeping them perpendicular to the sides like this now this is well hello today we'll look at design ideas where we get them and how we decide what to put on a quilt we'll discuss specific techniques like stitching in the ditch outlining block patterns and freehand feather designs and see the best way to use each one and Pam Clarke shows us how to set designs in the quilt using stencils so stay tuned Linda's long arm quilting is made possible by Gamal quilting machine company bringing quality innovation and service to quilters around the world for over a quarter of a century by yli making decorative threads that help you unleash your imagination by Statler stitcher providing automation to enhance and expand your long arm quilting business and by hobbs bonded fibers [Music] today I'm going to tell you about some different sources for design ideas and inspiration then we're going to put those ideas to work by applying specific techniques where they'll do the most good but for ham Clark is here to demonstrate her great stenciling technique welcome Pam hi Linda thank you it's such an honor to be here I am so excited to see what you have to to show the viewers and I know they can use this as on their home machines as well as long garnish exactly that's what's so nice about this technique it's not just not for the long arm use it's for anybody that does machine quilting and even some of the hand filters can use it Oh terrific but anyways what it is the reason why I started this is because when I started long arm quilting I could never get a pre-cut stencil you know I tiny minds beautiful pre cuts oh yes okay and then I pick him to my block and they wouldn't fit

Channel: Linda V. Taylor

Views: 50,641

Rating: 4.8549848 out of 5

Keywords: linda, taylor, gammill, quilting, longarm

Id: FQftE1_Hgw4

Length: 27min 40sec (1660 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 06 2014