Hey Everyone, welcome back to Free Motion Friday.
Free motion curls are not as hard as they look but they do take some practice just as any free motion quilting does. I do believe that they say it takes 10,000 hrs of practice before you become an expert. Harriet Hargrave is an advocate for practicing 10 minutes a day for 40 years. Forty years is a long time but I think you get the idea. Practice, practice and more practice is how one becomes good with free motion.
The curls are no exception. Practice by drawing them by hand on paper first before going to the machine.
The biggest thing with these curls is that you have to watch that you don’t sew yourself into a corner which I have done on occasion. If you do that’s okay just stop, tie off your threads and start again. No one will ever know.
Here is a close up schematic of the direction of stitching in the curl.
Sew in the direction of the arrows
A schematic of several curls.
Several curls
The curls can be randomly placed as they are in my sample at top or you could do them all in a row or go around and around with them.
I used this quilting motif on my Bargello in Winter quilt. To me it represented the swirling snow and blowing wind.
Give it a try and see what you think. I think they are lots of fun.
Happy Quilting!
