One of the questions that we get a lot is, how do you decide how to quilt it? Kimie loves to play with designs and the quilting is her way to add texture to a quilt. She definitely has a talent for deciding how to quilt them and mix and match patterns. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t unpicked quilting because she decided it just wasn’t working. I don’t recommend having to do that very often.
A couple of things that she does so that we don’t have to unpick quilting is to doodle. She creates an image (whether it’s a print out of the pattern or a flat photo of the top) and draws on it until she finds the perfect design to complement the quilt. Sometimes she also draws on the quilt itself. When doing that, she prefers to use a piece of plexiglass or clear vinyl, something that she can draw on with dry erase markers or something that will wipe away later. This is the reason we created our Quilter’s Doodle Book. It not only helps you learn how to quilt, but also how to decide what to quilt.
One of the best ways to practice quilting away from the machine is simply by doodling! It allows you to practice various quilt designs and helps you determine how to combine designs for a custom look. Doodling before you move the quilt to the machine helps to audition designs, see how they will fit together and plan how to move around the quilt. This allows you to try as many different options as you want, with ZERO unpicking. The more you practice, the better you'll get at knowing what complements each other and what designs aren't as effective allowing you to pick motifs that elevate the final quilt.
You can get your copy of our Quilter's Doodle Book here.
We’ve also put together different free motion YouTube tutorials that walk you through how we decided on the quilting plan for some of our quilts. I’ve consolidated the list below for you. Take a peek and hopefully they will help you as you determine how to quilt that next quilt.
