Hey Everyone, welcome back to Free Motion Friday.
I was thinking about what I could do this week that was a bit different and thought why not a bit of zigzag.
Nobody ever said that you couldn’t use the zigzag stitch to quilt with.
Last fall in one of my mini art quilt classes one of my students started quilting her piece and soon discovered that she and had left the machine on the zigzag stitch. She was about to rip out the stitching when I said no don’t do that why not see what this looks like. It turned out fantastic.
So my inspiration for today’s post comes from a newbie to quilting and how she ended up doing something a little bit different.
I’ve always said that different is good. If we were all the same life would be pretty boring and so would quilting.
I put my walking foot on my machine although I could have used my open toed embroidery foot with the dual feed engaged. The walking foot limited my stitch width to 5 mm whereas with the open toed foot I could have had a wider stitch. I could even have used the free motion foot but I wanted to have a bit more control of the stitching so I went with the walking foot.
I’m not sure I would want any wider of a stitch since the goal is to hold the layers together. I didn’t play with my tension for these samples but definitely would for the real deal.
Straight Lines
Here’s just a few different widths of zigzag stitches in straight lines.
Straight lines of zigzag
Cross Hatching
Next I increased my stitch width to 5.0 and length to 3.0 for a larger zigzag and did a cross hatching design. This is my favourite one.
Cross hatching with the zigzag stitch
Herringbone
Then I thought I could do a herringbone pattern with the zigzag stitch. Not bad but I need a little bit more practice with this one I think.
Herringbone
Echoing Curves
And a few curves that echo each other.
Curves
Double Zigzag
A double stitch zigzag would make the stitching stand out. It definitely stands out. And it definitely needs the tension looked at but I kind of like the puckering between the lines as it creates interesting texture.
Double zigzag stitch
Now I am not so sure I would use this zigzag quilting stitch for a quilt that is going to be washed a lot but definitely for a wall hanging or art quilt. In fact I think I am going to use it on The Wreath Quilt which has been layered, sandwiched and ready for quilting.
I wonder what other stitches on my machine I could use as quilting stitches?
Dare to be different, you never know what might happen.
Happy Quilting!
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