Exploring with Machine Quilting Session 3: Leaves and Vines

Well, if you're gonna stitch flowers you're gonna have to know how to stitch some leaves too 'cause the two go together wonderfully. And what you're gonna find is that stitching leaves is very much similar to stitching the petals of flowers. In fact, they have very, very similar shapes. Here I've got some, a variety of leaves stitched out. Some of them, somewhat realistic looking, some of them very fantasy looking and I like to do leaves on their own and with flowers as fill and as motif. And they're just kind of fun to play with. You can do anything from little holly shaped leaves, little heart-shaped leaves. One of my favorites. You can do leaves that have lots of veins in them, leaves that have just a little bit of more realistic veins in them. Very decorative leaves, really decorative fantasy leaves. Pretty much anything you want to, it's kind of playful but I've drawn out a couple of different designs or various different designs here. And what you'll notice is that most of them, not all of them, but most of them, have a center vein. And I tend to do a lotta leaves with center veins because I stitch that center vein first. And then it's the thing that I work off of and I'll show you what I mean in a few moments. It's very, very helpful, in my opinion, to have that center vein when you're stitching vines. And so I think that's kind of a cool thing. They can be used in different ways. Here they're being used as motif. A motif means it's a design element basically. And so this is a pretty fancy leaf. It's got a center vein and it's got wavy edges and it's got some heavy veins on one side, heavy veins on the other side, switch of color with more veins in the same direction and then a switch of color with movement or veins going in a different direction. So very, very decorative. Not realistic at all. They don't have to be realistic but everybody who looks at that knows it's a leaf. Whereas this is much more realistic looking. It's a nice little all over vine. And so we've got vines that carry the leaves around, and in between we filled space with little curlicues, little loop de loops. There's lots of doubling over here and thickening up of things, but it's a wonderful type of fill. However, it's a very decorative fill. So it's not something you wanna put in an area that you wanna push back and have receding into negative space. It's something that you would surround something else with, like a big flower, that you really wanna show off that flower and push back the negative space but have some sort of correlation with the designs. When we stitch the leaves, we're gonna be working off of a center vein. When we stitch a vine, which is something wonderful to do, again, as an all over pattern, but really cool in borders. And so I've stitched this or drawn this so that it looks like it can go on a border. And here I am stitching a border. We work off of the center vine and then we work off of the center vein and we simply alternate those leaves, side to side, side to side. I tend to, on my vines that are in borders, keep my leaves about the same size, but you can vary the size all you want. I start with the bulk of my quilt behind the machine and I pull it towards me as I stitch. You can do the opposite if you want to, you can keep it in your lap and push it away from you as you stitch, whatever one is more comfortable. The reason I like to do it with the quilt behind the machine and pull it towards me as I stitch is I feel like I can see a little bit better, but I'm gonna show you the motion here. And I would like you to practice drawing this. So make sure that you have some scratch paper and a pen handy. I'm gonna start with the center vine and then I'm gonna move to the leaf and do the center vein. Then I'm gonna do side one and side two. So basically what a leaf looks like is center vein, come down and out for side one, out and back in for side two, and then back down the center vein. Very basic leaf. So I'm gonna do the vine and I'm gonna move to one direction, center vein, side one, side two, back down the center to the vine. Center of the leaf, side one, side two, back down the center to the vine. Center of the leaf, side one, side two, back down the center to the vine. And I just keep doing this, alternating sides, center of the leaf, side one, side two, back down the center to the vine. Center of the leaf. Now I'm gonna change this leaf. I wouldn't do this while I was stitching. I wouldn't have a whole bunch of different varieties of leaves on one vine, but I'm gonna just kinda show you some different leaves. So we're gonna move to one that has a hook on it. So side one of the leaf, side two with a hook, back down the center to the vine. Again, side one, side two with a hook, back down the center to the vine I can put hooks on both sides. Center of the leaf, side one with a hook, side two with a hook, back down the center to the vine. I can put a curve on the end of that leaf. Side one, side two with a hook, back down the center to the vine. Curve, no hook. Wavy edge, smooth edge on one side, wavy edge on the other. Whatever it is I wanna do, but I'm always working off the center of the leaf and the center of the vine. So let's go ahead and stitch some of these leaves. And I'm gonna keep this handy for you to see as I do this. And I'm gonna stitch just some simple leaves first and then we'll move to some more complex leaves. My needle came unthreaded so give me a second here. And we're gonna start with finding some scissors. We're gonna start with a very simple, uncomplicated leaf. But we're gonna start with that center. So center of the leaf. Side one, side two, and then back down the center and finishing that stem. So you can see here what that leaf looks like and now I'm gonna do another leaf and this one's gonna have a hook on it. Center of the leaf, side one, side two with a hook, and then back down the center to the vine. So we have that little hook there. And I'm just gonna work off this vine. It's not necessarily something I would do as I was stitching, but it's easier than breaking that thread and starting over again. And I'm just gonna keep making a few different styles of leaves and playing with adding a little bit of extra detail, if you will, to each one. Center of the leaf and we're gonna have a hook on both sides of this one. So here we have two hooks. And now I'm gonna change the shape of this leaf a little bit. I'm gonna go ahead and stitch out a little holly type leaf. And, again, I'm working off the center of the leaf again. So center of the leaf and then little curvy. Get that pin outta the way. Little indentations, that curves and points For a little holly type of leaf. Now I'm gonna do an elongated leaf that has a funky little edge to it. Center of the leaf. So you can see here that this is simply playing with edge shapes, playing with length, playing with width. There's nothing, you know, that is exact about it. Now I'm going to make a larger leaf and I'm gonna put some detail inside the leaf. So that's the center vein. I'm gonna have one wavy the edge side and then one smooth edge side. And there's my basic shape. Now I'm not gonna go down the middle yet because what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna add veins to one side and I'm gonna use that middle as I do that. So I'm gonna follow along the outside edge into the middle, down the middle, back to the outside edge. And I'm gonna keep going back and forth as I add lines that fill in that space. So I have the detail just on one side of the leaf, then I'm gonna come in on this side and just add a little something here too. In the opposite direction. Like so, and that's a very fun leaf. So leaves can be a really great place to add fun, funky little details. You can make them your own, put your own little personality on them. And now I'm going to go ahead and do a little bit of leaf fill over here in this corner of the block, using tiny little leaves and lots of vines and little curly cues so you can see what it's like to do a fill using little leaves. So we're gonna head over to this corner. And you see I get back to the base of that leaf and then I add some little veins in there. Back to the base, add veins, and I'm gonna put some curly cues in between. And I'm gonna change directions by curving that vine around. So I've done a little curvy vine here so that I can fill in the area over here. If you can tell, my head bobs and it's following the motion that I'm making to make these leaves happen. I use the loop de loop to fill in space where I have too much space to leave it empty but not enough space to put in another leaf. Okay, so you can see here how this makes a really wonderful but very decorative fill. You can see all the wonderful little curly cues that are filling in space where there isn't room for leaves. The leaves have a variety of sizes, but they're all still relatively small. There's lots of doubling back and there's no perfection in that doubling back. It doesn't need perfection. It has this wonderful kind of wild look to it but it's just really pretty. This is a great thing. You can see, I could put these leaves around this big leaf and that big leaf is gonna be shown off but leaves upon leaves are kinda redundant. It would be better if this was a big feather or a big flower or something like that. Where I wouldn't wanna put this kind of fill is in something that I want to recede back and have you not notice. How could you not notice this? This is much too decorative. Even if the thread matched perfectly. Now let's go ahead and do a vine that's done in a border. I've already got this started. And basically what I want you to pay attention is to how I'm filling in the space equally. When you do any type of quilting in borders, any type of quilting anywhere on the surface of your quilt, it's not just, can I make this stitch look pretty? Can I make this motif look pretty? Can I do this style? It's can I fill the quilt in equally and fill in the space and not leave big portions unquilted and then have to go back and deal with that later? What we don't want are huge areas of unquilting next to areas of quilting, because then we have this poof that happens and it actually weakens the quilt. It allows for it to get caught on things, and it allows for those three layers of the quilt to act individually. We don't want that to happen. So what I'm gonna be doing is I'm gonna come back to the vine here, and I'm gonna work off that vine and do leaves from one side to the next, one side to the next, and add those little curly cues in between as necessary. I have what I haven't quilted behind the machine. And we're ready to go. So I'm gonna be coming up on the left-hand side here, center of the leaf, side one of the leaf, side two of the leaf, and then back down the center to the vine. I'm gonna go ahead and put a little curly cue here, swirling around, and then doubling back. And now I'm ready to go back up that vine again and come to the opposite side, center of the leaf, side one of the leaf, side two of the leaf, back down the center to the vine. Down the stem, add another curly cue, filling in negative space. And then back up that vine until I want to veer off to the left again. Side one of the leaf, side two, back down the center to the vine, another curly cue. I'm gonna pull another curly cue into here. Back to that vine, and back off to the right, another leaf. Another curly cue. A little curly cue down here and back off to the next leaf. So you can see how fun and easy it is to make these vines. I think once you start doing 'em, you're gonna say, oh, I can put one in every quilt. And if you're putting them in borders, they're not going to really impede with what's happening in the piece blocks of your quilt. And so they're a nice little additional motif, if they serve the quilt well. Remember just cause they're fun to do, and you like the way they look doesn't mean they're always the best thing for your quilts. So make sure that they kind of continue the story that's already taking place with the blocks that you've pieced and the colorations and things that you've chosen. So that's our basic leaf and now we're ready to move on to the wonderful, fabulous feather.