Machine Quilting Swirl Designs : Fillers Free-motion Challenge Quilting Along w/ Angela Walters

hi i'm angela walters from quilting is my therapy and this video is the second in a five video series called fillers free motion challenge quilting along quilt along with me and thousands of other quilters as we work through some of my favorite filler designs the best part it's absolutely free to see all the videos in the series click the link in the description box below in this video tutorial we're going to be talking about one of my all-time favorite quilting designs swirls if there was an mvp of quilting designs it would be swirls i don't want to be dramatic but there isn't a quilt out there that would not look great with a swirl on it okay so that is a little dramatic but what can i say i'm a swirl girl i'm going to teach you how to quilt several different types of swirl designs i'm going to demonstrate it on a sewing machine and a long arm quilting machine plus i'll give you tips and suggestions on where to use them so let's get to it first up the swirl meander i think this is one of the easier swirl designs to learn because there's no traveling there's not a lot of echoing it's just a great classic all-around design first i'm going to start by quilting a little curl that stops in the center then i'm going to finish the swirl by echoing my way back out so as my foot begins to approach the edge of the area or a previously quilted swirl i'm gonna stop and then quilt my next one holding another curl and then echoing back out again stopping before i run into that previously quilted swirl now as i continue to fill up the area by quilting those swirls and echoing back out i'm also going to incorporate echoing to maneuver my way around an area i can echo what i've just quilted i could echo what i previously quilted the trick is to try to keep the spacing the same as my swirls it's this echoing that's going to help keep my swirls from going into one direction and it's going to help me fill any gaps or unquilted areas that's pretty much the only steps this design i'm going to swirl i'm going to finish the swirl and then i'm going to echo the most important thing about this filler as well as any other machine quilting filler is that i want to fill in the whole area as completely as possible so if i end up with any little gaps i'm going to use echoing to fill them in i'm going to quilt a little swirl if i need to it really doesn't matter what i put in there as long as i fill it in now it's not the size of the swirl that's going to determine the density of your quilting it's the spacing between those echo lines so i'm trying to keep the spacing between the swirls and the echoes the same to give it that nice all-over texture now one way to help me do this is i'll use the edge of my foot to run along that previously quilted line that's going to help give me that spacing but if i wanted the quilting more dense because well i want to quilt the heck out of it i would make the spacing between my lines closer together or if i wanted less dense i would space my lines further apart you really have to fill in the whole area before you judge what it looks like i know that as you're quilting it can be really easy to get discouraged if one swirl isn't quite perfect but once you continue filling around it keep filling in that area and once you step back all you're gonna see is that lovely texture so please don't quit before the whole area is filled in well now that we've seen how to quilt this design on a sewing machine let's look at it on a long arm probably one of the most difficult things about quilting this design on a long arm is getting those nice round curves if you tried quilting this design before and you end up with a squared swirl or a squirrel just know that's completely normal if you think about the way that a long arm quilting machine works it's actually running on two sets of wheels so you have one going horizontal and one going vertical so to engage both of those wheels to get that nice curve can just take a little bit of practice as you get more comfortable quilting the design and moving through that curve consistently you'll see that start to even out so instead of being frustrated think of yourself as being 75 percent of the way there this is one of those designs that will refine itself each time you practice it so don't get discouraged keep it up because once you've learned how to quilt it you'll want to use it everywhere this design looks great anywhere on your quilts but i especially love it really small quilted in the background of my blocks or as an all-over design in busier fabrics now that we've learned how to quilt the swirl meander let's see how we can create some really fun quilting designs based off that shape but before we get started i don't want you to get overwhelmed i've put together a free downloadable pdf with quilting diagrams and tips for all the variations that we're about to learn and if you need a little bit more help a little bit more assistance you can check out the expanded pdf i put together for you with even more quilting diagrams and even more tips so to find out more about both of those just check the link in the description box below the first swirl variation that we're going to talk through is the swirl hook where we take that basic swirl shape and add a little hook to create a design that works great in tight spots i'm gonna start off this design the same way with the swirl by quilting a nice little curl but instead of finishing my way back around i'm gonna pause and i'm gonna quilt the hook by quilting a line that curves out to a point and this hook can be as long as you want it it can be as curvy as you want it just kind of quilt it out there into that unquilted space and then i'm going to echo my way back stopping before i touch the swirl and then continuing to echo and finish that swirl all right let's try that again another little curl i'm gonna pause add my little hook echo back and then echo around until i have my next little one as you're quilting try to keep that hook close to something else extend it out towards another swirl or towards the edge of the area but keeping it close to something else will prevent you from having these unquilted areas that you have to come back in and finish later but just like we did with the swirl i'm still going to use echoing to maneuver my way around the area and i'm still going to try to fill in the gaps as much as possible another thing that can help make your swirl hook look amazing is try to keep the spacing the same throughout the whole shape so the echo of the hook is going to have the same spacing as the echo of the swirl but keeping that spacing consistent is going to let that whole design just have that nice texture and if you get stuck with any areas that you can't fit a whole swirl just add a couple echo lines just add a couple arcs fill it in and move on and then once you're finished you'll have that beautiful swirly design with a little bit of a hook that will really help extend and fill in those points of your area now that we've seen how to quilt that swirl hook on a sewing machine let me demonstrate what it looks like quilting on the long arm for this i'm going to use the westward pillow panel i love how the blocks have little pointy edges so we can really practice extending our hooks to fill in those areas i designed this pillow panel as a smaller option to the larger challenge panel there are still some available for purchase if you'd like to get your hands on one just click the link in the description box below for all the details i'm holding the swirl extending the hook and trying to keep the spacing between the lines just like i did on the sewing machine in fact sometimes i get a little crazy and quilt two hooks the main thing is i'm quilting the hook so that it extends into the pointy end of the block really filling in that tight area and then echoing it back i'm trying to fill in this block and end up at the point that touches the next one this will allow me to quickly and efficiently move on to the next one now one thing i want to point out is that not every swirl needs a hook and not every swirl has to be the same size instead try to focus on keeping the spacing between the lines as consistent as possible i know i've said this a lot but it really does help and even if some of the swirls look weird i promise it's going to be fine use a swirl hook design anywhere that you would use a regular swirl but it really shines in the background around star blocks or pointy areas or in more masculine type quilts the next filler design we're going to learn is sweet and flowery it's the flower meander now you might be thinking hmm that's kind of weird why is a flower design in the swirl video well that's because it starts with the same basic shape as a swirl just a little curl except this time instead of quilting my smooth echo line i'm going to work my way back around quilting little arcs you know like the petals of a flower once i run out of room i'm going to bounce right out and do another row of them trying to put my arcs the same size these little petals are going to determine the density of the quilting so if i want the quilting to be less dense a little bit softer i'll make those arcs bigger whenever you decide you're ready to add another one go ahead and stop at any point and begin again quilting another little curl and then adding your arcs and you can start to see that beautiful texture design come together at this point i'm starting to sound like a broken record but you know the deal right i just want to fill in that whole area as much as possible if i get any weird gaps that i can't fill a whole other flower i'll just put a couple of arcs in there it really doesn't matter i just want that beautiful all over texture we've already seen this design and a couple of the other challenges that i put together but it's too good to not include now a couple things to point out so that your flowers look as fresh as possible is that i'm not quilting my art so that they touch the previously quilted row that's just gonna result in petals that get bigger and bigger and bigger instead i'm trying to keep them the same size i'm almost ignoring that previously quilted row of petals and just continuing on and look at that beautiful flowery texture the trickiest part about quilting this design on the long arm is dealing with the momentum of the machine quilting those arcs means that i need to control the movement and make some really tight turnarounds in between my shape as i'm quilting i'm bouncing in and out of each petal to give me those nice crisp points but if you're trying this for the first time you might notice that you're getting more loops at that point try not to get frustrated that just means you're learning how to deal with the momentum of the machine just keep working through it and filling in the area as much as possible now the thing about this design is it can take a little bit longer to quilt than just your basic swirls because of all those changes and direction that each petal is creating so this is going to be a design that i'm going to use in solid fabrics or tonal fabrics where you can see the quilting now sometimes you want to let loose with a design that is wavy and organic and that's exactly what our next variation is we're taking that swirl shape and we're replacing those smooth lines with wavy lines to create a more organic shape that looks great on your quilts quilt that little curl but this time i'm going to echo my way back around with a wavy line so as soon as my foot touches the edge of the area or the previously quilted line i'm going to bounce right back out and add my next wavy echo as i'm adding those echo lines i'm not trying to keep the waves parallel to each other each line is its own glorious wavy self i could keep adding echoes until i decide i'm ready to begin my next one so i'm going to quilt a partial wavy row just to kind of get out of that corner and then begin again quilting another swirl and then adding my wavy echoes and remember if you get stuck just travel along the edge get out and then move on and this is definitely one of those designs that as you're quilting the individual pieces you might think oh this doesn't look very good but once the whole thing is filled in it looks really kind of fun and like i said organic so don't judge it until you're finished although i joke about wavy lines being easy to quilt if you find them a little bit of a struggle you might be going too slow if you're going too slow it's really hard to get that momentum and that curvy wavy line down so try speeding up the machine just a bit but like we learned in the last video tutorial i don't want you going so fast you're out of control but i do want you to go fast enough that you're using momentum to your advantage now i'll be the first to admit this isn't going to be a design that you're going to use all the time on every quilt but it's going to look great on children's quilts on quilts where you need just a quick beautiful all-over design that's not going to take very much time and you can really shrink this down and it makes a really fun kind of filler now for this next variation the concentric swirl we're going to incorporate just a little bit of traveling into the design to create a different effect this particular design looks great in solid or tonal fabrics because it really shows off whatever you put it around it creates this look of depth and it's actually really fun to quilt so i'm going to start by quilting a little line that curls in on itself and i'm going to echo back out around it except this time i'm going to keep going until i run into something in this instance it happens to be the edge of the area but most often it will be the side of a swirl then i'm going to travel back along that edge about a quarter or a half inch or so and then echo the swirl again stopping when i run into the edge of the area once i'm ready to add another one i'm going to back up the line i've just quilted just enough to get me out of that corner and i'm going to repeat quilting another little curl echoing back out and then stopping once i run into something in this instance it will be the previously quilted swirl travel along the edge just a bit and echo the shape again and i can repeat traveling and echoing until i'm ready to move on to my next one that's what's great about this design there's no set number of echoes that you have to create but once i'm ready to add my next one i'm going to back up the line i've just quilted close another little curl and an echo and if you find yourself in a spot where you don't have quite enough room to add another swirl just add some echo lines or add some more arcs until you fill it in and then move on and then once you have room to add another swirl just back up that previously quilted line add your little curl and start building up that swirl with traveling and echoing this design also has a nice texture it doesn't have a lot of movement it just kind of is static and adds a little bit of interest with a little bit of depth now the next variation we're going to do the same exact design we're just going to switch up one tiny little thing instead of keeping the spacing all perfect we're going to alternate between skinny and wide echoes to give it a softer prettier texture so just like we've seen with the other design i'm going to put my little curl i'm still going to echo back out except this time when i travel i'm going to travel about a half of an inch and then echo and that's going to give me that bigger gap in between now the next time i travel it'll only be a quarter of an inch and then echo so i'm kind of alternating between traveling wider and narrower and it's going to give me that little bit of a different look but just like the concentric swirl whenever i'm ready to go into my next one i'm gonna back up the line i've just quilted add my little curl and continue on now this design is great because it goes together a lot quicker essentially we're leaving out one of those echo lines and getting a little bit of an emphasis on that unquoted area so so this is perfect if you want the look of concentric swirls but you want to go together just a bit quicker now don't worry if you end on a wide echo or a narrow echo just move on try not to overthink on that now this is something that again i'm going to use on fabrics that are tonal or solid so that you can really see the effects that little bit of traveling means it's going to take a little bit longer to create this design and so i kind of want to get a good return on my quilting investment i want to make sure i can see it when i'm finished and just like the concentric swirl i'm going to use this in bigger areas it does take a little bit longer to develop so i'm not going to try to fit it into any little small area the trick with this design though is if i'm going to have a difference in the spacing between my echo lines i want it to look different enough that it looks intentional i don't want to look kind of close so if my narrow echo is going to be a quarter inch i'm going to make my bigger echo a half of an inch now in this variation we're going to use our swirls to create movement by quilting the elongated swirl instead of quilting my swirls nice and round i'm stretching it out and creating that beautiful elongated shape this design is heavy on the echoing which means it's very forgiving so let me show you what it looks like okay i'm going to start by quilting a elongated swirl it's gonna be kind of a wavy line that ends in just a little curl once i have that shape it's time to echo echo echo building up that shape because i'm gonna be adding a lot more here just a little bit now there's no touching to this design so as soon as my foot starts to approach that previously quilted line i know it's time to change direction and move on but once i've echoed that shape a few times however many times you'd like it's time to add my next one the main thing here is i want this design to go in all different directions to give me a beautiful texture and a look of movement without being directional so i'm going to quilt my next line so that it goes in opposite direction so instead of quilting it straight i might quilt it so it wraps around and comes down below it ultimately it doesn't matter where you quilt it just quilt it so it extends out into that unclosed area and then echo echo echo for these echo lines i'm trying to keep them smooth i'm trying to keep the spacing consistent but i'm not super stressed about that i just want to get it kind of close and then move on it really doesn't matter what side of the swirl you echo just keep echoing and build up that shape as i start adding my elongated swirls i'm going to end up with gaps in between them and to handle that you probably can already guess i'm going to use echoing to fill it in remember the most important thing is that we're trying to keep that spacing as consistent as possible and then once i have filled in that gap and i have room i'm going to add my next elongated swirl now just like all the swirls that we've learned up to this point it's not the size of the swirl that's going to determine the density so quilt that initial line a length that feels comfortable to you remembering that we're going to build up and make it bigger so on a sewing machine my swirls tend to be a little bit shorter while on the long arm i tend to put them a little bit longer the trick to getting those nice smooth echo lines is to look ahead of the needle in the direction that you're heading that's going to help you see what's coming up so that your hands can adjust but also moving in a fluid smooth movement is going to help as well i am more focused on this echo lines being smooth than perfect so don't stress if your line gets closer and further apart just keep going keeping it smooth this design looks great in bigger areas i don't want to try to fit those elongated swirls in really tiny irregularly shaped areas so maybe not around your complex blocks but definitely in your bigger areas around bigger elements of your quilt now one thing i love about learning different designs is that sometimes you can combine them together to create a totally new filler combining concentric swirls and pebbles is a really great way to give your quilting a different look a pop of interest and texture and it keeps me from getting bored start by quilting a concentric swirl by quilting your little curl echoing back out traveling when you run into something and echoing now once you decide that that swirl is finished quilt a few pebbles just like we learned in an earlier video you can pull two three four as many or as few as you want and once you decide that's enough of that you can go ahead and go right into your next swirl the main difference with this design is that sometimes i'm going to run into that previously quilted pebble and that's great i'm still going to travel along it and add my next echo line that's what's going to help those pebbles really pop now you can play around with the scale here too even though i normally put my pebbles small and my swirl's a little bigger you can change that up or you can quilt more pebbles and less swirls i mean you can really have fun combining them and creating different effects this is also another really fun way to combine your designs to give yourself a different effect this time we're using the unquilted area to really draw attention to our quilting i'm going to start by quilting the elongated swirl just like we saw earlier except instead of ending in a little curl i'm going to end in a circle and now i'm going to do the same thing i did on the elongated swirls by echoing echoing echoing so i'm going gonna make sure i echo around the sides and around that circle and you can echo as many times as you'd like it's up to you then once it starts getting a little bit too big for you to manage it's time to branch off and start another one including that elongated swirl that reaches out into the unquilted area ending in that circle and then echoing as i start to fill in this area that pop of unquilted area in the middle of that circle is really going to draw attention but everything we've been doing with elongated swirl is the same i'm still going to use my echoing to move around the area i'm still going to quilt my swirls fill in those gaps and you don't have to quilt each swirl so that it ends in a pebble you can sprinkle these in the area if you'd like it's totally up to you you can decide how big to make those circles i like to make mine probably about an inch wide so they really pop against the denser echo lines but if you want it to have a more subtle effect you can make the size of your pebble more similar to the spacing of your echo lines keeping those similar in size will help prevent that unquilted area from standing out that is a lot of swirl designs and i hope that you're excited to give them a shot so if you're quilting along with me on the custom panel i designed for the challenge go ahead and fill in the areas highlighted in yellow with the swirl designs and variations of your choice and i'll be back next week with another video in the fillers free motion challenge quilting along where we'll talk through geometric fillers and how to create beautiful designs with straight lines until then happy quilting

Channel: Angela Walters

Views: 103,651

Keywords: allover machine quilting designs, angela walters free motion quilting challenge, angela walters tutorials, filler quilting designs, fmq challenge angela walters, fmq challenge.com, fmq quilting, free motion challenge, free motion challenge angela walters, free motion quilt challenge, free motion youtube challenge, free-motion quilting angela walters, machine quilting circles, machine quilting on a sewing, machine quilting pebbles, quilting on a regular sewing machine

Id: t1NrmnuS8sU

Length: 22min 34sec (1354 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 28 2022