Free Motion Quilting with Corners

Now one of the funnest things to do when it comes to the whole quilting genre, in my opinion, is free motion quilting. You have all sorts of freedom and that freedom just gives you wings and allows you to do whatever you wanna do. Mastering new stitch outs though, can be a little daunting, especially when you don't understand how a stitch out is formed. Now, a stitch out is simply the design that we're doing in the quilting. Sometimes we do a lot of stippling, and a stippling is a stitch out. Or we make little circles, and those little circles are a stitch out. Now, curvy designs are done with one sort of body movement and then lines with corners or designs with corners, are done differently and it's a design that has a corner, is a design that requires your hands to stop moving. And this is a little unusual for free motion quilting because normally our hands are in a constant, very specified motion. But when we want a corner to happen, we actually have to stop with the needle in the down position and then turn that corner by moving the direction of the fabric. Not turning the quilt, but turning the direction of the fabric. So I've just turned the fabric in a square, do you see that? So I have turned the fabric in a square, I'm not turning it so that I can form a square, I'm turning the fabric in a square. But you'll notice that when I'm doing that, it's very different from the motion that I make when I do a circle. So when I do a circle, the motion is continuous, I can stitch a circle by doing this. But when I wanna stitch a square, I have to stop when I get to each corner, 'cause if I don't stop when I get to each corner, what I do is I end up with a circle. So it's that stopping when I change direction, and I want a hard corner, that's very, very important. So I'm gonna do a few different stitch outs for you here and in the beginning I'm gonna say the word, stop, stop, stop, every time I get to a corner. And what you're gonna see is that my hands stop, but my machine sounds exactly the same because my machine is not stopping. Yes, I am going to be using my speed regulator, if you will. So on this machine there's a little slider, where I can be stitching at very slow speeds, no matter how much gas I'm putting on the foot pedal, or I can stitch at very high speeds. But wherever I sit my slider, that is the maximum speed it will go. So if you can do that, one of the best places to put your machine for free motion quilting is 75% of max, 70 to 75% of max, which is where I have mine set right now. So I'm gonna go ahead and drop the bottom thread, I'm gonna pretend like I'm quilting something that is important and I'm gonna nod off like I normally would. And then I'm gonna stitch some very simple interlocking rectangles and squares. Stop, stop, stop, stop. Stop, stop, stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Every time I'm gonna change directions, my hands have to stop for just a moment. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. If I stop for too long, and my machine just did something really funky there. But if I stop for too long, I'll end up with a big old knot in the corner, which I do not want a big old knot in the corner. So, my motion of stopping is very, very momentary, I'm not stopping for very long at all. So this is a wonderful, very modern looking stitch out, it's a really a very crisp, clean stitch out. And things with corners are quite different than things with curves. Everything that we do has energy to it, and that energy affects how we look at a piece of artwork. So, anything with corners, sharp corners, is gonna have higher energy than things with nothing but curves. So, that is one stitch out that has sharp corners, but here's another and this one looks more like a maze. But, just like with this last one, every time I turn a corner, my hands have to stop for just a moment. So as you're watching this, don't pay attention to what's happening with the needle per se, pay attention to what's happening with the movement of the quilt, because that's guided by my hands. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. So it's a very different looking stitch from the last one but to get those tight corners, that hand has to stop just for an instant, making sure that we don't stop so long that we ended up with little knots in the corners. So our final little stitch that I'm gonna show you, is a star and stars have long angular corners and you have to stop with those also. And I'm gonna sew little loop-de-loops between those stars to get from one star to another. But we're gonna start with a star and this is the star that we used to draw when we were in kindergarten. It's one of those little five pointed stars. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. And then surround with loop-de-loops. Move over to where I can make another star. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Surround with loop-de-loops. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Surround with loop-de-loops. And that's how you do any design that has corners, is just to remember to stop.