Introduction to Free Motion Quilting

Free Motion Quilting really is the BEST way to quilt your quilts. It's faster, more efficient, and can produce some amazine designs on the surface of your quilts!.

But many people just getting into free motion struggle with it. The idea of taking off that big, comforting walking foot and trading it for a skinny, dangerous looking darning foot just seems scary.

Even worse, the idea of flipping a switch and turning off your feed dogs, those busy little teeth that feed fabric through your sewing machine, just seems wrong!

It's too much freedom! What are you going to do?!

Calm down. Breathe. You'll be fine.

The reason for all the hysteria is due to a very big problem in the way quilters are being taught to machine quilt. Most quilters take a machine quilting class and are instructed to purchase a Walking Foot (sometimes called an even feed foot).

This is very bad because walking feet can be very expensive. The last one I purchased for my Bernina sewing machine was over $150.

So armed with this extremely expensive foot, most quilters feel like they should be able to quilt EVERYTHING with a walking foot. After all, what good is it to spend all that money and not use it?

Walking feet quickly become the comfort blanket for most quilters. This is very unfortunate because walking feet have a HUGE limitation: A Walking Foot can only quilt straight or slightly curvy lines.

This is a nightmare! It's like giving a kid a bike with set of gold plated training wheels. That kid is never going to learn how to ride without them because they were so expensive, you'll never want to take them off the bike.

The worse part about walking feet is they're not really necessary.

Seriously, you can use a free motion darning foot to quilt straight lines. This is absolutely the most versitile, necessary foot for a sewing machine, and they're also relatively inexpensive (especially in comparison with walking feet).

You need to use this foot because free motion quilting is design to be free!

With this style of quilting, you have complete control over how the quilt moves, where you go and at what speed. Your hands moving the quilt creates the designs on the surface of the quilt.

By using a free motion quilting foot, your quilt should be able to easily move and shift under the needle, allowing you to move it fluidly to create beautiful shapes and textures on the surface.

The fact is, you just can't do this with a walking foot!

It's important to understand that there's nothing wrong with any form of quilting.
As long as you're having fun, don't judge your experience.

But if you'd like to learn how to make quilts like this quilt called Release Your Light, you're definitely going to have to learn free motion quilting and master the art of moving and shifting your quilt in your sewing machine

The best thing is, you don't need a super powered, ultra expensive sewing machine to do this! As long as your machine can piece, it can probably free motion quilt beautifully too!

What is most important is making sure your sewing machine is set up properly so your quilt isn't fighting against you as you try to quilt it.

It's also important to start with the right tools and materials for the job. While your grandmother might have made her quilts only with cotton thread and batting, that doesn't mean your choices are limited to these materials. Free motion quilting is acutally easier for most quilters when using high quality polyester threads.

Finally,when it comes to getting started, all you really need to do is pick 1 design. Quilt this design over an entire quilt and by the time you finish, you will be a million times more confident about free motion quilting.

With nearly 300 designs posted to the free motion quilting project, you now have a huge source of inspiring videos and designs to choose from.

Check out the Free Motion Quilting Project and pick a design to quilt over your first quilt today!

 

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