Cut Work Quilts Session 3: Quilting the Motifs

I really like this top fabric that I've chosen to use. But I remember when I used it before and I stitched with black that I could barely see where I was at. Real quickly I'm gonna kind of do a trick. I'm still gonna have this as my top fabric, and I'm still gonna stitch with black thread but I'm gonna stitch from the back, 'cause my back is purple and I'll be able to see that fabric better. So I'm going to trim this edge here.

Trim everything even with that top fabric or somewhat even with that top fabric. And then I'm gonna stitch from the back and that way I can see a lot better. I'm gonna have to put my pins on the other side but my basting didn't take much time so it's not a big deal. So as I turn it over I'm gonna try really hard not to displace anything 'cause I don't wanna have to re smooth it. But it's just gonna make the process a lot easier.

So if you're using a color of thread that may not show very well on your surface, you can always stitch from the back. Now as with any quilt, you can either start quilting from the center out, or you can start quilting from one end to the other. However, because I haven't really left any excess batting or backing 'cause this piece is so small I know that I don't really need to. I'm gonna start from the center and kind of quilt out. And I'm gonna start by stitching a flower first.

And then I'll surround that flower with a smaller flower and some leaves. So I'm gonna drop these feed dogs. And then I'm going to start sewing right here in the middle with a flower. Now, instead of doing just one big circle like this I'm actually gonna do a series of small circles because I think the way that it cuts away is more interesting. We'll start by bringing our bobbing up to the top so that we can knot off nicely.

And I'm gonna do Some small circles that all touch each other. And then I'm gonna go round those circles to make a big circle. And once I've done that I'm gonna go ahead and cut away these threads so I don't stitch over them over and over again. And now I'm ready to make my petals. My flowers always have these five petals.

If your flowers have four petals, great. If they have six petals, great. It doesn't really matter. As long as you're somewhat consistent maybe, who knows. So here's the first petal.

Back to that center. And here's the second petal. Third petal. fourth petal. Then fifth petal.

So now I'm gonna double back from the center of the flower and put in inner petals. The first one. And there's my first flower finished. So I've got these wonderful circles in the middle that I can cut out and have all these different colors showing if I want to, or all one color showing. The outer petal and the inner petal.

And then I'm gonna move out and I'm going to do a stem. And the stem is gonna have some width to it, not just a long line. And a couple of leaves. So I'm gonna come out and do one side of the stem. And move into a leaf.

And the second side of that stem, and out again. And another leaf. And the second side of that stem. And the reason I wanna have that width to that stem is so I can cut it away and reveal a different color underneath. Now, I'm gonna travel over to another portion and I'm gonna put in another style of flower.

And so I'm gonna double over something that I've already stitched to get to where I wanna go. And I'm gonna put this other flower on a stem. It's gonna have a circle with a center. That's just surrounded four little petals. One, two, three, four.

And then I'm gonna make the second side of that stem. And then I'm gonna put a leaf. And I'll show you that petal, that flower in just a second. Now off because I'm gonna knot off because I'm gonna move and stitch another flower now. So this is what we've got so far.

We've got our small flower with our four petals and a single circle. We've got our big flower with our five petals plus our inner petals, plus our multiple circles. And we've got some leaves. So now I'm gonna move over and do another flower.