How to Machine Quilt the Basic Swirl Meander: Free-motion Challenge Quilting Along w/ Angela Walters

welcome to my latest free motion challenge becoming successful with swirls i'm angela walters from quilting is my therapy and this is the first lesson in a six-week video series where i'll show you different swirl designs how to use them on your quilt and how to quote some fun variations in other areas incredibly versatile but slightly frustrating to learn swirl free motion quilting designs can help give your quilt a custom look in this video we're gonna get cozy with a basic swirl design it's the shape that makes up all the different swirls that we're gonna learn through the series and i'll also show you how to quote the swirl hook design it's like a basic swirl with a little flair you'll also learn how to use your quilting designs to help highlight elements of your quilt or hide them depending on how happy you are with how they turned out well we have a lot to cover so let's get to it if your quilting along with me on the challenge quilt before we can start quilting we have to do just a little bit of marking using your favorite marking pen or pencil mark for lines to divide the quilt in five sections it doesn't have to be anything perfect we're just using the quilting to divide our area up so that we can learn our designs okay so we're gonna get started with a basic swirl design and I'm gonna go over it kind of quickly because I've used it in a challenge before I will give you some troubleshooting tips though that might help you become more successful with that design I'm gonna start with a line that curls in on itself and I'm trying to keep that curl nice and small think of like a nickel or quarter size once I get ready to run into my previous quilting line I'm gonna echo my way back out with this design though we're gonna stop before we run into anything else so as my foot is approaching that previously quilted line I'm gonna stop and then go into quilting my next another nice curl at going back around and stopping when I get ready to run into something else looking ahead of the needle is going to help me keep that echo line as smooth as possible of course I could echo what I previously quilted and that's going to help just ensure that I can move around and get bringing to go especially if I'm working on it both like this when it comes to closing that first part of your swirl the direction doesn't matter they can point to the left take a point to the right really whichever way you close it is fine I tend to have a habit of quilting my swirl away from the one I just pulled it I don't know if that's because it's an easier way to do it or that's just how I do it so as you can see all my quilting is looking like a blob I'm trying to keep everything nice and close together it's gonna help prevent any gaps in the quilting and I think that people will notice a hole in the quilting before they notice an error so I'm keeping everything nice and close to what I've just quilted use echoing to help you maneuver around your area you don't have to echo it just quilted you could echo what you've previously quilted whatever it takes to get where you need to go but I am trying to make sure that the spacing between my echo lines and my quilting designs are the same and that's was going to help give me that nice overall texture to help keep my spacing consistent I love to use the edge of the foot as a guide what that means is as I'm quilting when I quote my first little swirl and then as I come around I'm looking at the point where my foot is running along that previously quilted line and that's just helping to give me a guide to follow so looking ahead of my needle and just following [Music] I'm using a beautiful teal thread because it contrasts so you can see it on the camera if you bought the coordinating thread collection use a color that blends in the most another thing to think of when quilting your swirls is that you want to keep the lines nice and smooth it will give it a nice texture and I'll keep any individual squirrel from showing up more than another swirls are great as an all-over design but they also work as a filler quilting them around an element of your quilt will really help show them off let's pretend that some of the dots on your fabric happen to be particular dots that you want to show off what I could do is quilt it in the whole area except in the dot so if I'm quilting along I'm gonna start my swirl but I'm gonna leave myself room to go back out that means I'm not taking it all the way to that dot because when I come back and finish this world so they've got a nice and close without crossing over swirl plenty of room and I'm kind of extending that swirl out to make it hit the edge even if it means it has to get a little wider now when you're working around something like this dot echoing is going to be very handy to help you maneuver around and here I have my marked line that's kind of dividing out the section that I'm working with swirls so I have a smaller space to fill in maybe it's not quite enough room to add a swirl so I'll just add some more echo lines as long as it's the same spacing it's gonna look fine and then once you have room you can go right into your swirl stopping when you're touching that dot now if you really want to show off the dot you can travel around it if this were applique on a quilt I would stitch around the outside it's really going to make it pop however it's a little trickier to do that especially around a circle but this is the free motion challenge this is a great time to practice and this is a great illustration how quilting over elements of your quilt will help blend it into the texture or quilting a round of a really helped highlight it so this is something I would do to an area that I want to show off not something I would do to an area that I'm trying to hide now let's learn a variation of the basic swirl where you can quilt it into irregular shapes by just adding a little hook it's gonna start the same way with a line that curls in on itself however before I finish the swirl I'm gonna quilt a pointy line that curves out extending into space and the echos back in finishing this world so the sororal hook obviously is one design but if you think about it in two steps it might make it easier for you to quilt I'm gonna start with my swirl but before I finish it go out into my hook that go back and then back around this is great for masculine clothes for clothes that you have a lot of irregular shaped areas that you want to extend that poke into if I have discovered with this design there's one thing that will make it a lot easier to quilt when I'm tilting the hook I want to keep it close to something else whether it's another swirl or the edge of the area I'm keeping it nice and close so I don't have any gaps if I have to come back in to fill up later here you can see exactly what I mean about keeping that hook close to other quilting I've quilted three of my swirl hooks and I've kept the hooks short which is not going to really help me fill in any area and I also haven't kept them close to other quilting designs now it's not a problem because I can go back and echo in and fill around it but it's leaving me gaps that I have to come back around and fill in later and chances are quite good but I'll forget to do that another thing that will give this design a great Oliver texture is to keep the spacing between the lines of your hook the same as your swirl that's going to keep one element from showing up more than the other and just give it that nice texture here you can see a quilter that cook a lot closer together and what happens is it makes it stand out more than the swirl and kind of draws attention to that area another thing to consider when putting your swirl book is to make that hook nice and long if you're taking the time to quilt it you might as well really extend it out in space and have it take up as much quilting space as possible especially when you start dealing with those irregular pointy areas like in between flying geese for other types of walks like that or other similar kinds of blocks so just save yourself a little bit of hassle and keep that book nice and long keep it close to other closing designs and try to get the same thing as consistent as possible now how about that swirl hook I love it as a filler as an Oliver design but it's also great for borders use it in your three to four-inch borders by altering the direction it's gonna really fill in that area honestly when it comes to quilting swirls the number one common frustration is when you get a more squared swirl or like we like to call them squirrels now you could just call that a mid-century modern variation but it just means that you're not moving smoothly through that whole line it's something that will work itself out over time so don't get frustrated instead of being discouraged look at it as that you're 75% there now it's your turn if you're quilting along with me on the free motion challenge in the center portion of your quilt go ahead and quilt some different variations of the swirl design you can quilt all of them you can just quote one just whatever feels comfortable to you and you can leave your questions in the comments below or you can join our Facebook group and you can post them there well have fun quilting and I'll see you next week and so that you don't miss any of these videos in the free motion challenge go ahead and subscribe

Channel: Angela Walters

Views: 118,375

Rating: 4.9320202 out of 5

Keywords: angela walters, angela walters rulers, machine quilting angela walters, machine quilting designs and ideas, machine quilting rulers, machine quilting with templates, quilting is my therapy challenge, quilting swirls for beginners, quilting swirls video, machine quilting swirls, free motion quilting swirls, angela walters quilting challenge, angela walters quilting is my therapy, angela walters quilting along, angela walters quilting videos

Id: UruJ0TsrIVU

Length: 9min 22sec (562 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 16 2018