As I was working on the Dragon Quilt, I knew that I wanted to free motion quilt flames, but I have never quilted that as a pattern before. Taking my own advice about preparing for free motion quilting, I spent some time on Wednesday looking for an image or pattern that I could turn into a repeating flame pattern by hand. After finding something I liked, I practiced drawing it. And practiced some more. Once I felt like I had a reasonable ability to repeat the pattern and have it look OK, I folded up the paper and placed it on top of my machine to look at as a reference while I was sewing.
Dragon Quilt – Flame Sketch
Dragon Quilt – Repeating Flame Sketch Practice
After I was done practicing, I jumped right into quilting the pattern. And I am really happy with how the pattern looks on the quilt and continues the dragon theme on to both sides of the quilt!
Dragon Quilt – Quilting Detail
Including the time it took for me to practice sketching the quilt pattern, I spent 6 hours creating this 40″ by 40″ (pre-wash) baby quilt.
Dragon Quilt – Closeup
I used a mottled blue and green batik for the binding. I love how batiks make crisp mitered corners when used for binding.
Dragon Quilt – Completed Quilt
I used YLI’s primary colors variegated thread for the quilting, and it blends in seamlessly to the dragon print but stands out enough to add some fun and character to the primary color blocks.
Dragon Quilt – Primary Color Blocks
I am really excited about this quilt, especially since it used up materials entirely from my stash. I am already looking forward to what I can find to work with next!
Oooh that fire design turned out great!
Oh wow. You did NOT seriously just freehand those flames!! That is amazing work!
Those flames turned out great!!!
What a great design and execution! Well done!
What was your process in getting the flames to replicate so beautifully? They really do, you know!
I practiced repeating them by hand on paper a lot before I started sewing, and I kept a sketch of the pattern on top of my machine to look at as a reference. Also, I started in the middle of the quilt and worked to a side, so I had less chance of wandering in the “line” of the pattern. It turned out not to be very difficult to match the pattern up in the middle. And I took breaks. That might be one of my FMQing best tips; frequent breaks to stop and stretch.
The flames turned out awesome! Great quilt!
Lovely and thanks for the tips!
Nicely done. The flames quilting is great and nicely compliments the quilt
Hillary
Great flames! I love how they stand out on the plain squares.
I can’t believe you finished this already! It looks great! I love that dragon print and your flame quilting.
This looks so good. I usually try to create all over quilting designs, but I love how you quilted this in rows like a pantograph.