Frequently Asked Questions about Leah Day and the 365 Days of Free Motion Quilting Filler Designs Project

Learn more about Leah and find the answers to all your questions about machine setup, tables, tools, supplies, fabric, and more!

General questions about the project
How do you come up with so many designs?
Why did you start the project?
How do you manage to do it all?
Where can I see all of the designs?
How big is the fabric that you use for your sample design?
What do you do with all of the samples after you finished?

Free Motion Fillers DVD and Downloadable Workbooks
Where can I purchase the DVD or workbooks of the designs?
Are the videos in the DVD different from those shared on the blog?
How many pages is the downloadable workbook?
Are you planning on coming out with DVDs and Workbooks of all of the designs?

Machine Setup
Do you drop your feed dogs and / or what stitch length do you use?
Where did you get your sewing table?
Do you use a stitch regulator?
How do you get such good control over your speed?
What machine do you use?
Where did you get your free motion foot?
Why don't you use a longarm?

General Quilting Tips
What supplies / tools do you recommend?
What thread do you use?
How can I get better stitch quality?
How do you mark your quilt tops?
Do you square your quilt top before quilting?
Do you roll your quilt into a log before quilting?

Don't see the question you have? Contact Leah for help and advice on free motion quilting!

How do you come up with so many designs?

They just come to me. I can't explain it any better than that!

A year ago, I would never have imagined I would be working on this project. It just goes to show that a lot can happen in one year.

I do find inspiration mostly from Better Homes and Gardens magazine, Marvel Comics, and various books on signs, symbols, art and archeticture.

Occasionally I'll be out around town and have to stop and shoot pictures or draw a design quickly. My family has learned to humor these oddities since the start of the project!

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Why did you start the project?

I started the project for several reasons. First off, I'm sick of stippling! I realized while quilting Release Your Light that there HAD to be more designs, I just needed to start inventing them.

I also started this project to push myself. I've blogged about quilting before, but instead of being helpful and informative, it usually degenerated into 365 days of bitching and complaining.

I love to work online, but for the life of me I could never figure out how to run a quilting business online. When the idea for the project came, it was like an ultimate lightbulb moment. Ureka!

The problem was, I had no idea how I was going to do it, or how this was going to turn into a business. Sometimes you just have to go with it and figure the details out later!

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How do you manage to do it all?

I get this question a whole lot and it makes me sad actually. I think it's sad because for all of our advances as women and the advances in quilting as an art form, not just a craft, we still very rarely see women crafting as more than a hobby.

The blog project, my quilting website, and my skin care website are, in essence, my job. Just like a mom that puts in a 40 hour work week, we still manage to have time for our kids, spouses, and friends.

That being said, there are a few things that I don't do because I either don't have time or that my time is better spent not doing them. I have my house cleaned every 2 weeks and my husband takes care of all the grocery shopping and cooking. I don't fold clothes, wash dishes, sweep, mop, or scrub anything other than my kid on occasion!

While my house may not be spic and span, I find that a little dirt never hurt anybody and the time I used to spend cleaning was time I could be quilting.

I feel so unbelieveably fortunate to be able to work at home and run this quilting business. I've wanted to own my own business since the age of 16 and every day it just gets better and better.

I wake up excited to start working and often work late into the night because I don't want to stop working! It doesn't feel like a job at all, it feels like a dream come true.

There's a quote I love from the movie American Beauty that goes like this:

"It's an amazing thing when you wake up and realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself.
It makes you wonder what else you can do."

If you find my ability to quilt, shoot video, write, blog, take care of a kid and husband, run a business, and still have time to quilt for fun totally amazing, ask yourself why.

There's a lot more time in the day than you think, and it's amazing what you can do if you only try.

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Where can I see all of the designs?

Check out all of the designs here. These pages are broken into 20 designs per page. To view the design and video, just click the image or the link below it.

You can see up until the recently finished set of 20 designs, so if we're on day 73, you will be able to see up until day 60.

These pages are not easy to code so I only work on them when a full set of 20 designs is done.

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How big is the fabric that you use for your sample design?

In all of the videos and photos, I'm working with a 6" piece of fabric with a 4" drawn square in the center.

I quilt the 4" square, which lucky for me, appears much bigger in the photos and videos!

If you try this yourself, don't scrimp on fabric. Definitely cut yourself a 6" square because it makes it easy to have something to grip and hold onto while your quilting.

If you cut your square too small, you will end up stitching very close to the edges and your stitch quality may suffer.

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What do you do with all of the samples after you finished?

While I've had many creative suggestions as to what I should do with all the sample design squares, I'm placing them all within page protector sleeves and into a 3 ring binder.

In order to get them all to fit and be relatively organized, I trim off the excess fabric to within 1/8" around the quilted square then slip 4 at a time into plastic page protector sheets.

I've found that a 1" 3 ring binder can hold around 40-60 designs.

I like to take the samples and pin them to my quilts, mixing and matching until I find the fillers that I want in each area of my quilt.

I have had many suggestions such as piecing them all together to make a big quilt, but I'd rather each design stay in a small format so I can easily thumb through them at my lesiure.

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Where can I purchase the DVD or workbooks of the designs?

You can purchase Free Motion Fillers Volume 1 DVD and Workbook Set here. This set features the first 20 designs from the project with extended videos and hand drawn graphs for you to practice drawing the designs yourself.

Or you can purchase the Workbook and DVD seperately here.

 

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Are the videos in the DVD different from those shared on the blog?

Yes! In many cases the video had to be completely reshot with new video footage and audio commentary.

Almost all the videos in the DVD feature more footage and more tips on free motion quilting than what is shared on the project.

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How many pages is the downloadable workbook?

The workbook is exactly 50 pages long. Each design has 2 pages devoted to it full of information on where to place the design on your quilt and how to quilt it.

2 handdrawn graphs are included with each design. One with the full design filled in and one with the design only partially filled in so you can practice drawing it yourself.

Echo Rainbow Graph

Echo Rainbow Practice Square

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Are you planning on coming out with DVDs and Workbooks of all of the designs?

No. I'm only planning on coming out with 5 DVDs for a total of 100 designs.

I do plan to come out with 18 downloadable workbooks, each featuring 20 designs.

Do you drop your feed dogs and / or what stitch length do you use?

No, for the most part I do not drop my feed dogs as it seems to mess with the tension of my machine.

Instead I lower the stitch length to 0 and cover the feed dogs and machine bed with a Supreme Slider.

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Where did you get your sewing table?

I found my sewing table for $3 at a yard sale. While finds like these are rare and lucky, there are 2 tables I personally recommend:

Plain, adjustable sewing table

Ezi sew table

Of course, these tables aren't very big so you'll need to purchase more folding tables at walmart or lowes to finish off your space. Idealy you'll want to have a good 3-4 feet of table from the back of your machine to the wall and a good 3 ft of table from the left side of your machine to the wall.

I have a 5 ft x 3 ft folding table to the back of my machine and a 2ft x 18 inch table to the left. This creates kind of an L shaped setup, but it REALLY works for quilting, especially big quilts.

I think sum total you would only spend around $250 tops if you did it my way, verses thousands of dollars for sewing cabinets that are designed by people who have never sewn a stitch in their life!

It's worth every penny to get a quilting setup that WORKS! Having a good setup often makes the difference between free motion quilting being easy for you or hard.

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Do you use a stitch regulator?

No. I personally believe that the best stitch regulators in the world were build inside your hands, feet, and brain. All you have to do is learn to use them properly!

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How do you get such good control over your speed?

Simply put - practice! Practice "feathering" your pedal by increasing and decreasing the speed on purpose while stitching in a straight line. Play with increasing and decreasing rapidly until the movement becomes an even flow.

It's good to keep in mind that free motion quilting is not all "pedal to the metal" but it's also not turtle slow either.

Just like a car, you need to be able to slow down to take turns, but then speed up in the open areas or when you have a design so memorized you can stitch it in your sleep.

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What machine do you use?

I quilt with a Juki TL-98 QE, which is a semi-professional lockstitch machine (meaning it only goes up and down). The throat plate is 8.5" which is not very big, but the speed of this machine (1500 stitches per minute) makes up for the small throat.

This machine was around $650 and is a good price for a good machine. I eventually plan to get a second Juki so I can have a backup whenever one needs servicing.

I piece and sew with a Bernina Activa 210, but I have also used a Viking Prelude 240, Bernina Activa 240, and older Bernina 830 (1970s version) and liked all of them too.

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Where did you get your free motion foot?

The free motion foot in my videos is the same foot that comes with the Juki TL-98 QE. It's simply been modified to be an open toe.

A fellow blogger tried my modifications and has shared photos here. I did not have to use the small piece of wood for my foot, but if you find that the foot is squishing your quilt top, you might want to try it and see if it helps.

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Why don't you use a Longarm?

There is a prevailing notion in the quilting world that you're not a professional quilter unless you're using a longarm. I disagree with this notion completely.

I believe you can quilt any quilt you want, even big quilts, so long as you have a good setup with tables and the right tools and supplies to make it easy for you.

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What supplies do you recommend?

I recommend all of the supplies and tools listed in my quilt shop. I absolutely won't sell anything that I don't use myself on a daily basis.

The 3 items that took my machine quilting from fair to outstanding were:

Supreme Slider - Teflon coated sheet designed to reduce the friction between your quilt and your sewing machine. If you find yourself fighting with your quilt or getting muscle strain from trying to manuever your quilt inside the throat, definitely try using a slider.

Machingers Quilting Gloves - I was lucky enough to discover these during my very first quilting class and I have never free motion quilted without them. The rubberized fingertips allow you to grip the quilt and control it's movement much more precisely.

Little Genie Magic Bobbin Washers - Before I found this product, I would never have dared stitch with contrasting thread or stitched a 2 sided quilt. These washers improve your stitch quality dramatically by reducing thread nests and bobbin tension issues.

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What thread do you use?

I use Isacord polyester thread in both the top and bobbin. This is a thin, affordable, strong thread that seems to do everything I ask before I even ask it (if only if could train my husband as well)!

When I say affordable, this stuff is really affordable! A 1000 yd spool retails for around $6 depending on where you get it.

If I really want my stitches to blend into the background, especially on the back of the quilt, I will use The Fine Line thread, but this is almost too fine sometimes for domestic sewing machines and can cause problems like breakage and thread snarls.

With both of these threads, make sure that you're using the Little Genie Magic Bobbin Washers. The threads are so thin, they can often get caught in the bobbin case and cause thread snarls and nests on the back of your quilt.

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How can I get better stitch quality?

Practice! When you first get started free motion quilting, it will feel like standing on your head for the first time. It will take some time for you to get used to using your machine in this way and literally drawing with your needle.

The biggest problems begining quilters have are big stitches. Try slowing down the movement of your hands, bringing them closer to the needle, and increasing the speed of your machine.

If you find that you're getting a lot of bobbin thread on the top or top thread on the back, play with adjusting your tension, and invest in Little Genie Magic Bobbin Washers which help to even your bobbin tension and reduce thread nests.

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How do you mark your quilt tops?

I design my quilting designs on 1" large scale graph paper and then transfer the designs using a lightbox and a blue water soluble pen.

If your quilt is dark, use a Soapstone Marker to mark your quilt so the lines will show up.

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Do you square your quilt top before quilting?

No. This might be the equavalent to quilting herecy, but I do not square my quilt top before quilting it.

If you're piecing accurately and precisely, then your blocks should be square, the sashing around them should be square, and the borders around the whole quilt should be square.

If you find yourself struggling with this, check out Stitch it Up a Notch: How to Piece Perfect Quilts. This is a terrific ebook designed to teach you how to piece square and accurately.

Quilting can often distort your quilt, so rather than checking for square in the quilt top, I wait until after the quilt is quilted completely, then I soak the quilt in a bathtub of hot water and block it on large styrofoam boards that double as my design wall.

After the quilt is dry, I square it using a mat and rotary cutter on the floor and then attach the binding.

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Do you roll your quilt into a log before quilting?

Heck no! Think about a log for a minute. Loggers often will float logs down rivers because they are hard to manuever.

Why in the world would we want to take a flat quilt and roll it up to make it similar to a log? It's like trying to make a car drive easier with 2 wheels!

Instead of rolling my quilt up like a log, I instead slide it under my needle and wiggle my way to the center of the quilt. When quilting on a domestic machine, you always stitch from the center - out.

When I say "wiggle my way" I really mean just that! I don't roll my quilt, I just kind of squish the quilt up against the back of the machine (kind of pleating it, but not really) until I'm in the midde.

The middle is the hardest to quilt, but the fastest area to finish so once it's done, the rest of the quilt is easy.

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If you don't find the answer to your question here, make sure to contact Leah and ask!

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