Free Motion Script Session 3: Marking Lines for Stitch Plus Easy Pin Basting

I try to never use a marking tool that I have to worry about how am I gonna get that mark out when I'm doing any type of quilting at all. My favorite marking tool is this little guy, it's called a Hera marker, and all it is is a piece of very sharpened plastic and it marks a crease. So I'm gonna use that to mark the lines that I need on this piece, and the lines are the only thing I mark. I have tried to do this process without marking lines, and I just never get the quality of neat and tidy that I'm looking for. If I'm doing this in a border then I don't mark anything because the border is my definition and I can keep my stitching within that border, but if I'm doing it on a large open piece on a quilt, then I kinda need to know where to put my lettering.

So, I know that I can go two and a half inches, that's what I did on my paper here, but I want some excess down here at the bottom, mainly I need it for the hang down on the P here, and also I think I wanna put that name a little farther down. So instead of using two and a half inches, I'm gonna use two and a quarter inches. And I'm just gonna put a mark line there. So that's gonna give me room for that P. And then I'm gonna use my paper here and I'm gonna mark all the way across.

I've got my batting underneath here already because that batting gives me a great cushion so that I get a really strong line. And this is simply a crease so I don't have to worry will I get this mark out, all I have to do is mist the piece with a spray bottle of water and then iron it and the mark is gone. And not gone and gonna come back later, but gone. So, this guy is ready mark wise, and I'm just gonna pop a couple of pins in it to baste it with some straight pins, and then we'll be ready to do some stitching. I should let you know that I have two layers of batting in here, and the reason I've put in two layers of batting is because I really want the stitch line to show, and that extra layer of batting's gonna give me the poof that's gonna allow that to show.

If I were doing this as a show quilt, one that's going to hang, I would make my top layer, or the layer that's right underneath my fabric, wool, because wool really shows off stitching really well, or any type of machine quilting, and that's because of its loft. I baste with straight pins because I know I can stitch right over them and not worry about having to remove them. I use silk pins, not thick, heavy pins 'cause those would probably break a needle and these don't. So this one's ready to go, but I'm also going to stitch out a big, big capital letter for you so that you can see how we can add those flourishes. So I'm just gonna put a couple of pins in the corners here to hold this together.

Normally, I would choose a thread color that is gonna show well but that mixes really well on the surface too, so on this one maybe I would use a medium value of violet, but today I'm going to be using gray so that you can see it really well when I'm stitching, I want you to be able to see what I'm doing, and if I match it too well, then you won't be able to see it in all of its wonderful glory. So now we're ready to stitch.