How-To and Ideas

You have a finished top, you want to have a finished quilt. But, you need ideas for how to quilt it. Here are our suggestions, plus examples of how a few of our customers have enhanced their quilts with very effective quilting. This should get you started:

• Use wavy, horizontal lines in the background to suggest clouds, wind or water. To make it more interesting, space these wavy lines closer together in the bottom third, then gradually space them further apart as you move up into the sky.

• Using the lines from your pattern page, quilt in a few more images from the pattern. We call these ghost images, and depending on the pattern you have used, these could be leaves, cattails, flower petals, hummingbirds, or stars. Put them in the background, in the frame, or both. (In this photo you see more Peacock feathers on the background fabric.)
• Echo quilt, either the entire background, or just in the outer frame. Space echo quilt lines about 1/2 inch apart.

• Inside the applique, add details to the image. Put veins in leaves and flower petals, add texture to the Frog with quilted circles, dripping wax on the candles. (This photo shows the detail of a Dragonfly's iridescent wing.)
• Think about what else lives with the images in your applique - add quilted snowflakes to the Penguin or Snow Lady quilts, dragonflies on the Frog quilt, a lady bug or two on the Rose Arbor quilt.
• Use a printed image on your fabric as quilting lines. If the fabric for your Kimono quilt has fans or cranes on it, quilt around a few of those, then repeat those images in the background or frame, in different sizes.
• A grid can suggest a trellis for either the Grapes or the Rose Arbor quilts.

For even more quilting ideas and pictures,
click here.