Swirl Meander Machine Quilting Tutorial: Free-motion Challenge Quilting Along w/ Angela Walters

hmm throw me under how do I love thee let me count the ways you're so fun and easy to quilt there's not a quilt top you wouldn't look great on you're just perfect in every way okay well if you want to love quilting the swirly under as much as I do in this tutorial is for you I'm going to show you just how easy it is to quilt using the basic swirl shape with a little echoing and then show you a fun variation in which we elongate them and add a lot more echoing so for this tutorial I'm changing up my thread up to this point I've been using that turquoise thread but I feel like you can't quite see it on the video so I've opted for a hot pink thread this is called glide thread it's a 40 weight so it's a little bit thicker that I typically use what's great about it is even though it's a slightly different way I'm still using the same needle so let's get to quilting with this fun hot pink thread before I start to quote my throw me enter I'm going to go ahead and stitch along all the seams of my block this isn't something I've done in the quilting along up to this point but it is something that I like to do when I'm quilting other clothes normally I'll stitch along the seams before I get started with the quilting although sometimes I'll do it after it's actually not that hard once you get the hang of it what I'm gonna do is use a ruler to help me keep my line somewhat straight along that seam and I'm gonna pull in small increments that way I can adjust as I'm quilting because let's face it my seams are not going to be perfectly straight if the themes are pressed to one side I like to try to quilt along the low side as close as I can to the edge and that will kind of help it disappear into the theme now that the themes are all stitched in I'm ready to start quilting my swirl the basic shape is pretty easy I'm gonna put a line that curls in on itself I want that swirl to be nice and round I quilting it about the size of a quarter is a great size to start with after you quilt the first part of your swirl it's time for step two which is the most important part you want to finish that swirl before you go into your next one what that means is I'm gonna echo my way back out echoing around the outside of that swirl and I had my first swirl shape but we know it's not the first swirl it's difficult to quilt it's the second third fourth and fifth one that give us trouble so let's see how to fill in this whole area with the swirl meander this design doesn't touch anything else so as soon as I approach the edge of my area and then quilt my next little swirl finishing it by echoing around the outside until I get close to running into something so there's my first two little swirls right there now here's something I don't want you to worry about I'm not worried about which way my swirls are facing that doesn't matter instead I'm focusing on keeping that spacing as consistent as possible so when I go to add my next one I'm not worrying about which direction it's going I'm just quilting my little swirl and then echoing my way back out echoing is your best quilting friend you can echo the swirl you just quilted or you can echo a previously quilted squirrel which is what I'm going to do here I'm gonna try really hard to keep that spacing consistent as long as the spacing is consistent it's going to make it all look good if you find yourself getting stuck in an area just echo your way out or travel along the edge whatever it takes to get out of that spot then you can go right into your next world I'm quilting my squirrel so they all stick together nice and close I don't want any gaps in the quilting area I want to make sure that I don't have to come back and fill anything in and I'm using echoing to move around if you find that you're having a hard time getting your squirrels nice and round one thing you can try doing is maybe speeding up just a little bit sometimes going just a little bit faster will help you get that momentum going and help you get that nice smoother squirrel that consistent spacing between the lines what helps the whole design have such a nice texture [Music] what I love about machine quilting is that once you get the idea of a basic shape you can quilt so many different variations of that in fact I have a crafty class called small changes big variety where I show you how to take classic quilting designs such as a swirl and add different variations to them to get some fun effects now if you want to check out that class you can find all the information below in the description box but now I'm going to show you a really fun variation of the swirl in which we quilt an elongated swirl this is perfect for adding movement or texture to your quilts there's no traveling no touching but you get a slightly different look so let me show you how easy it is to quilt that one I'm going to close a nice elongated swirl and then I'm going to echo echo echo this world that means is just going around and really building up that shape and you can echo as many times as you like but when you're ready you can go ahead and add your next one going in a different direction and maybe have an elongated one going down over here that going there's no touching so as soon as I get close I'm going to pop back the other way and echo now the hardest part about this kind of swirl is you're going to get some weird caps in between them so we're gonna use echoing to fill those in and we're also going to add some little swirls if necessary but as soon as those gaps are filled in and I'm ready to quit my next one I'm going to close it nice and long and I'm gonna make it go in a lot of different directions and I'm gonna echo echo echo now this design is echo heavy that means we're going to be echoing the shapes a lot in a couple tips to help you get more comfortable with echoing is to use the foot of your machine as a guide running that foot along your previously clips of line will give you that consistent spacing that we're striving for [Music] also look ahead of the needle don't look right where you're quilting you want to look on down the road so that you can adjust but most importantly don't worry about keeping the spacing so perfect I would rather focus on having that line nice and smooth than perfectly spaced I get stuck with the corner like this I can always add more echoes or some little swirls it doesn't matter as long as the spacing is somewhat consistent I'm just going to travel my way right on out the other side so I'm gonna just keep floating along in this girl man filling in this whole area and we'll see what it looks like when I'm done [Music] [Music] [Music] and there we have it - swirl variations that are very similar in how they go together but a slightly different look for your clothes so what do you think are you in love with the swirl meander yet if you're participating in the free motion challenge quilting along go ahead and quilt either variation or both on your square and check out the second video in which I'm going to show you how to quilt the feather meander happy quilting

Channel: Angela Walters

Views: 167,946

Rating: 4.9566159 out of 5

Keywords: swirl meander, machine quilting, free-motion challenge, angela walters, fmq challenge, free-motion quilting, free-motion challenge quilting along, swirl meander machine quilting tutorial: free-motion challenge, quilting swirls for beginners, fmq challenge angela walters, free-motion quilting with angela walters, machine quilting designs and ideas, angela walters free motion quilting, angela walters midnight quilting

Id: 8cpUWw5zYMc

Length: 9min 9sec (549 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 26 2018