Angela shows yWoua lhteors w! Includes graph paper to plan & practice FREE-MOTION QUILTING Angela Walters shows you how! WORKBOOK Angela Walters Text copyright © 2014 by Angela Walters Photography and Artwork copyright © 2014 by C&T Publishing, Inc. Publisher: Amy Marson Creative Director: Gailen Runge Art Director: Kristy Zacharias Editor: Liz Aneloski Technical Editors: Teresa Stroin and Ann Haley Cover/Book Designer: April Mostek Production Coordinator: Jenny Davis Production Editor: Alice Mace Nakanishi Illustrator: Kirstie L. Pettersen Photo Assistant: Mary Peyton Peppo Style photography by Nissa Brehmer and instructional photography by Diane Pedersen, unless otherwise noted Published by Stash Books, an imprint of C&T Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 1456, Lafayette, CA 94549 All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may be used in any form or reproduced by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems—without written permission from the publisher. The copyrights on individual artworks are retained by the artists as noted in Free-Motion Quilting Workbook. These designs may be used to make items only for personal use. Donations to nonprofit groups, items for sale, or items for display only at events require the following credit on a conspicuous label: Designs copyright © 2014 by Angela Walters from the book Free-Motion Quilting Workbook from C&T Publishing, Inc. Permission for all other purposes must be requested in writing from C&T Publishing, Inc. Attention Copy Shops: Please note the following exception—publisher and author give permission to photocopy pages 14, 15, 22, 23, 30, 31, 40, 41, and the graph paper in the back for personal use only. Attention Teachers: C&T Publishing, Inc., encourages you to use this book as a text for teaching. Contact us at 800-284-1114 or www.ctpub.com for lesson plans and information about the C&T Creative Troupe. We take great care to ensure that the information included in our products is accurate and presented in good faith, but no warranty is provided nor are results guaranteed. Having no control over the choices of materials or procedures used, neither the author nor C&T Publishing, Inc., shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book. For your convenience, we post an up-to-date listing of corrections on our website (www.ctpub.com). If a correction is not already noted, please contact our customer service department at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 1456, Lafayette, CA 94549. Trademark (™) and registered trademark (®) names are used throughout this book. Rather than use the symbols with every occurrence of a trademark or registered trademark name, we are using the names only in the editorial fashion and to the benefit of the owner, with no intention of infringement. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Walters, Angela, 1979- Free-motion quilting workbook : Angela Walters shows you how!. pages cm ISBN 978-1-60705-816-8 (soft cover) 1. Machine quilting. I. Title. TT835.W35654 2014 746.46--dc23 2013040405 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Chapter 1: Introduction 4 Chapter 5: Negative Space 32 How Does Sketching a Design Help? 4 Pick Quilting Designs That Add Movement 33 But … 6 Use the Quilting to Extend the Piecing How to Use This Workbook 7 into the Negative Space 35 Final Word of Encouragement 7 Try Using Basic Quilting Designs in New and Unexpected Ways 36 Chapter 2: What’s in a Plan? 8 Ready to Sketch? 38 Stuck? 10 Negative Space Worksheets 40 Ready?? 12 Planning Worksheets 14 Chapter 6: Conclusion 42 Chapter 3: Blocks 16 Quilting Designs 43 A Few Guidelines 17 About the Author 46 Ready to Sketch? 21 Block Worksheets 22 Graph Paper 48 Chapter 4: Borders 24 Border Management 25 Note to the Reader Ready to Sketch? 29 I can’t tell you how excited I am about Border Worksheets 30 this product. I feel that it will help you become more confident in your machine quilting. If you have any questions about designs you see in this workbook or if you would like to share pictures of the designs you have sketched, feel free to visit me at my website, quiltingismytherapy.com, or contact me at [email protected]. Contents 3 More times than I care to count, I have stood over a quilt ready to start machine quilting, only to hesitate. I knew what I wanted to quilt, I could see the design in my mind, but I couldn’t get my hands to translate that vision into actual quilting. From talking to other machine quilters, I know I am not the only one who has felt that way! A huge portion of machine quilting is just knowing where to go next. Because of that, I tell anyone who will listen to me (quilters, students, and even random store clerks) that sketching the quilting designs is a great way to teach your brain how the designs flow. Once you know where to go next, you are more than halfway there!! How Does Sketching a Design Help? In every class I teach and every book I write, I encourage sketching as a way to practice machine quilting. I know it works, because it was a huge help to me wWdamgeheholeaiev,nn nem s rI m eytbhd yesa ogtftoin arf s rnmwot mmaqy suyh tis olhotixuiewn s mgnvee omqornyuvat eihcbltrhsei n tigonegielnn dj onw.y iueTnarahsgnr i,ses y. ipdIftIir e’losslaet gfisdlurl e anhwsn atsidtoveh e dd l od emooesroksi gi esgbntv naseos cnfI k a mh bnaaeydnv d esrrek afsemnoetdrciegnoh dohbmtoeot dweso nc koIr. sifhb, abevaleec sh. my quilting time was limited. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t practice. When I couldn’t quilt, I would practice sketching When I could finally carve out a little time the quilting designs over and over. In to actually use my quilting machine, the fact, I would sketch designs while my stitching went so much easier. Sketching the kids colored next to me at the table. Talk designs taught my mind where to go next. about multitasking! No piece of paper Once I had that down, all I had to do was was safe. I had sketchbooks all over the get used to the feel of the machine, which is house and stacks of random scrap paper much easier than you might think. I believe stuffed in my purses. you will find that the same is true for you. 4 Free-Motion Quilting Workbook Chapter 1: Introduction 5 A great idea that someone But … suggested was to practice designs on a sewing machine by using paper and an unthreaded needle. I can’t draw. Once you have the design down in your head, taking a few moments to Solution: I hear this comment all the time. do this may help your quilting go even The most important thing to remember is smoother! that you are not drawing the designs to become an artist; you are training your brain to learn how the design flows. It doesn’t matter what the drawings look like. The only thing that matters is that you know where to go next. Remember, you aren’t drawing to enter an art show! Sketching hurts my hands. Solution: Usually if people complain that sketching hurts their hands, it means that they have a death grip on the pencil or pen. Instead of being tense, relax! Clenching the pencil as hard as you can will not help you learn the design faster. If you have problems gripping something small like a pencil, try using a marker. I use a home sewing machine; I don’t think it will translate for me. Solution: This is the number one concern I hear from quilters. It’s true—moving a pencil is a different movement from moving a quilt in a machine. But when you are sketching different quilting designs, you aren’t training your hands; you are training your brain. You are learning how to completely fill in areas with the quilting designs. You are learning how to keep from getting stuck. And, most of all, you are learning where to go next. When you sit down at your sewing machine, those are the things that you will need to know. 6 Free-Motion Quilting Workbook How to Use This Workbook Think of this workbook as a guided sketchbook, not a how-to book. Throughout the book, I give you tips and suggestions for how to quilt different parts of a quilt and examples of quilting designs. This is to get your creative juices flowing; use the sheets in this workbook however you like. The end of each chapter has two pages of graph paper that have a variety of different shapes drawn on them to represent the different sections of most quilts. Practice filling in these shapes as completely as possible, without lifting your pen or pencil. Remember, every time you lift your pencil, you have to stop quilting and start a new line of quilting. We all know that stopping and starting takes time, so keep that in mind!! Use the graph paper pages at the end of the workbook to continue your planning and practicing. Final Word of Encouragement This is your workbook to use how you want, of course. But I would like to give a few encouragements before you start. Put Down the Eraser! Don’t Be Perfect! Please, please, please, don’t worry about messing up. The only way to erase actual quilting is to spend a long, boring time picking out the quilting; so don’t erase when you sketch. When sketching, if you make a mistake, just keep going. The more you fill around it, the less noticeable it will be. There’s no such thing as perfection in free-motion quilting, so there won’t be perfection in your sketches either! You are not trying to create a masterpiece; you are just trying to learn the design. Enjoy the Process Be proud of what you do. You are doing your current-best quilting for right now! Enjoy that fact. But also know that each time you practice, whether by quilting a quilt or sketching in this workbook, you will get a little better. Enjoy the process! Are you ready?? Happy sketching! Chapter 1: Introduction 7 When I am getting ready to start quilting, I usually take a moment to try to figure out my plan of attack. I am not neces- sarily thinking about the designs I am going to use. Instead, I try to break down the quilt top into smaller components before I pick out the quilting designs. 8 Free-Motion Quilting Workbook Let’s use the following quilt diagram as Looking at this quilt, you could decide to an example. break it down in a number of different ways. This particular quilt design consists of You could quilt one design in the border, square blocks, the background, and one in the background, and a third design a border. in the blocks. Or you could break it up in a different way. You could quilt the same design in the back- ground and border. Inside the blocks you might decide to quilt different designs in the center and outside of the blocks. Of course, that is only the starting point! You could go a little crazy, like I might, and quilt something different in each part of the quilt. The main point is to know how you are going to break it down. Doing this before you start quilting will help you figure out how many different quilting designs you will need for the quilt. Just having it narrowed down will help make the selection process a lot less overwhelming. Chapter 2: What’s in a Plan? 9