06 May The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting

The talented machine quilters, Angela Walters and Christa Watson have teamed up to give us The Ultimate Guild to Machine Quilting.  It is a very informative book with tons of tips and techniques.  Angela focuses on long-arm quilting and Christa on quilting with a home machine, but all the information they provide can be used in many ways.

Now, if you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that free motion quilting is definitely not my strong suit.  However, I decided to give some of the designs featured in the book a try.  First I made a two-block version of their U-turn project from the book (pg 116), then I searched through the book to decide which designs to try.  I chose Christa’s Squared Chains and Irregular Zig Zags and Angela’s Ribbon Candy.

I really like the Squared Chains and they work well to fill a space, but would also look great in a border.  I definitely need work on making the size of my squares more consistent, but I’m pleased with the overall effect.  For both the Zig Zags and the Ribbon Candy, it was hard for me to stitch the design evenly and to keep my stitching within the 2″ high quilting area.  Again, more practice would help.

As a teacher, I always tell my students that practice is the key!  If there is a quilting skill you’d like to improve, practice, practice, practice!  I should be better at taking my own advice 🙂

If you are interested in improving your machine quilting get the book here and start stitching!