How to Machine Quilt with Arc Rulers: Free-motion Challenge Quilting Along with Angela Walters

one machine quilting design that i really struggle with is quilting nice elongated curves it's really hard to keep that consistency over that big of an area so this is where arc rulers really come in handy hello and welcome to the third week of the free motion challenge quilting along i'm angela walters from quilting is my therapy and this week we're talking all about arcs we're going to be creating some motifs learning how to echo and also how to make our arc rulers a little bit more versatile i'll show you how to stretch it out shrink it up and make it fit the shape you need it to fit of course there are many types on the market basically what we're looking for is just something with a nice elongated curve it doesn't have to be the same on both sides i really like these arc a rulers it's a set of multiple sizes and each one has a different curve on either side kind of giving me a little bit more bang for my quilting book in general having a larger arc ruler is going to be a little bit easier to manage but if you don't have quite as much throat space a smaller one will definitely work as well all right so i'm going to use my arc ruler we're going to get right to it and learn how to do a little bit of echoing now i can practically guarantee that you will not always have the same shape ruler as the block that you're echoing around but i'm going to show you how you can work around that what i'm going to do is only quilt along part of it and then shift and continue starting with my needle in position i'm going to place the ruler looking at the curve and trying to find the area that it fits the best now the great thing about these rulers is i can see where the line is going to end up now at this moment it's not going to end up so great but i'm going to actually shift it as i go to create that curve so i'm going to press down on the ruler and quilt along the curve until i start to get further away from the block all right at that point i'm starting to veer away from there so i'm going to reposition and then continue along [Applause] so that first line quilted now when i want to go around the other side i'm going to have to reposition the ruler and continue along i've rotated the quilt so you can see exactly what i'm doing however if i were doing this on the actual quilt i wouldn't do that i would leave it in place and that means i'm going to have to get comfortable working from all sides of the foot with that ruler if you're new to quilting and that seems like a little too hard don't worry just reposition the quilt and make it easier on yourself so i'm gonna keep doing that working my way around and then we'll do some arcs on the inside of the block now let's use our arc ruler to create a design inside the piecing what i'm going to do is create curved lines that go from point to point to point to create a complex looking design and i'm going to do the same thing i did with the echoing using just a portion of the ruler to give me the line that i need my first curvy line is going to go from the midpoint of the center block then it's going to arc out to one of the petals i want it to kind of swing out and then come to this point well i can tell when i line my ruler up that it's not going to go out quite as far as i want it to go so i'm going to do the same kind of thing where i'm going to reposition the ruler halfway to give me that arc that i want so i have my first line and i want to add another one inside of there except this time i'm going to quilt another line to the other point turn this so you can see what i'm doing and hold another line that goes back to my starting point and this is where we're going to see that working from all sides of the foot is really going to be more efficient for you again taking a moment to pause make sure that the line's going where i want it to go and then quilting along the ruler so pretty and i think i'm going to add one more inside of here just for fun all right and there's my first petal and i can repeat that in all four sides until i get the whole thing done i'm using this contrasting thread so that you can really see what i'm doing on the quilt this would look much better if i were using the red thread that's in the coordinating thread collection quilting these lines in groups of three ensures that i can flip the whole block without starting and stopping being able to shift this around makes it a lot easier to quilt on a long arm we don't have that option so let's go try this design on the long arm and talk about the differences now the biggest difference to quilting this on the long arm is that i'm gonna have to get comfortable working in all different directions and that means i'm gonna probably make some funny hand placements as i come around this side i'm still gonna hold the ruler in place i'm gonna quilt along part of it and then reposition and i think you'll find that quilting some directions are easier than others for instance when i get to this side of my block be tricky because my hand is going to kind of block my quilting so the first thing i'm going to do is make sure i have the ruler positioned correctly and as soon as i get to my hand i'm going to stop and reposition my hand again remembering that i have to move my hand as i move along the ruler and making sure the ruler stays in place all right here's another tricky one so i'm going to position the ruler first make sure i like where it's at then as soon as i can't go any further i'll reposition my hand and what i love about it is that you can use just one ruler to create arcs of all different sizes curved echoing looks so great on a quilt but it can be a little bit of a pain but here's a cool trick even if the shape of your echo doesn't completely match up with the shape of your design as long as the lines are smooth it'll look good so i'm going to echo around the outside of these using my ruler and even though it's not quite the same shape it's going to be fine the trick is to keep the line smooth and just add a few echo lines even though it's not the same shape it still looks nice and just because the shape curves one way doesn't mean you have to quilt your curved line the same way in these outer portions the line curves out but i'm going to quilt it so that it curves in basically i just want you to play around and create a bunch of different designs by quilting your arc lines in all different directions now we know what to do if the ruler is too big for an area or you need a different shape but what do you do if the ruler is too small well now we're going to make a partial motif and use echoing to fill in larger areas so i have my bigger block right here but let's pretend i'm using this ruler and i want to create some kind of motif but it's not quite long enough well the first thing i'm going to do is shrink that area down just a bit basically i'm going to make a smaller square i'm going to use my design supply and stencil to help make that happen you can use a ruler or any kind of marking tool and i'm going to mark this point right here i'm going to pretend like the smaller bit is going to be my square and i'm going to mark my line over here and my line over here these are going to be my reference points marking just the reference dots instead of all the lines and the whole design is going to make the removal process so much easier now for this i'm going to quilt a line that's going to curve out to my point to the next one and back and then to this one then i'm going to add a couple echo lines and then fill in the rest with some free motion filler to finish off the block and i'm going to line that arcs to this corner all my lines are going to come back to this point that's kind of like my home base so you're not sure where to go you're going to go to home base i'm going to quilt another one that goes out to that furthest point and then back now for the first time we're seeing if my ruler isn't quite long enough right we're going to do the same thing we did before where we quilt part of it and shift except this time we're not doing it to change the shape we're doing it to extend our line taking a second to kind of picture where this line is going to go make sure it's kind of on the right trajectory much better to take your time here than to end up with quilting that has to come out and then repositioning and as i'm repositioning i'm looking for that dot that i need to hit and i'm keeping the ruler about a quarter of an inch away from it right because if i want to land right on that dot i can't be right on it and then finishing up the first arc there's my first big arc i'm gonna go back to my home base doing the same thing quilting to about halfway mark and then repositioning and i'm almost done just one last line and then i'll have the first part of my motif finished there's the first part of my motif but the problem is it's not filling in the area right i need a little bit more quilting in here to really fill it in so i'm going to use my arc ruler and add a couple of echoes around this design and then fill in the rest with some kind of filler um if i have to guess it's probably going to be swirls i'm getting ready to add my echo lines but this time i'm not actually going to travel i'm just going to swing my arc ruler out a bit to our ends up about a quarter or a half of an inch away from that next line and then echo around it this is really going to force you to quilt those arcs in all different directions to get comfortable with using different portions of your ruler either extending it out or using just a portion of it to create different designs once you get the hang of this all those arc rulers that you have will be so much more versatile and remember you don't have to quilt it in one smooth motion you can stop and reposition and take your time now when quilting this design in all different directions there's going to be times when you can't really see where you're going so if i have to i'll kind of do the scooch down and look behind the needle thing or i could just reposition the quilt as well now of course i could add some more echoes but you know sometimes quilting with rulers you want to switch it up and hey if you like this video or tutorial i hope you'll subscribe or give it a thumbs up that'll help other cultures find it as well okay so now it's your turn if you're quilting along with me on the custom panel for the challenge quilt arc designs in the areas highlighted in red you can create motifs you can echo them do whatever you like and if you're not sure where to put those designs i have downloadable quilting diagrams that will show you the perfect placement well thanks for joining me today i'll be back next week where we talk about quilting with cutout rulers one of my favorites happy quilting you

Channel: Angela Walters

Views: 25,396

Rating: 4.9847426 out of 5

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Id: Q-JhUXqMZ1M

Length: 10min 50sec (650 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 12 2020