Today we’re free motion quilting three spiral designs to add beautiful texture to the goddess’s shirt, baby wrap, and the background. Learn how to free motion quilt Basic Spiral, Swirling Feathers, and Hot Hot Spiral in this quilting tutorial:
Quick links to things mentioned in this video:
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Just in case you missed the last post, Click Here to learn how to quilt the goddess's face and hair (without it looking weird!)
Free Motion Quilting Three Fun Spirals
I didn’t mean to put so many spirals into this quilt – it just kinda happened! I think spirals are a great symbol for creation though and that’s what this mother and child goddess quilt is all about. That’s the nice thing about free motion quilting – you can use it to add extra symbolism to your quilts that can be very challenging to add with bits of fabric.
Let’s dig into these three spiral designs:
Basic Spiral – this is as basic as it gets! This simple spiral quilting design starts by swirling into the circular shape and leaving lots of space for you to get back out again. Once you quilt to the center, then stitch back through the middle of the space you left open to get back out again.
You may end up with strange gaps between the spirals and you can either leave them or stitch a little point into the space to help fill it consistently.
Swirling Feathers – Feathers are always a great choice for goddess quilts because they cover a lot of space and add a gorgeous texture over the quilt. I wanted to pick a design for the baby wrap that would make that space look puffer than the rest of the quilt, but not be too girly, just in case this quilt is meant for a mom who has boys.
Swirling Feathers fit the bill perfectly! Each spiral you stitch swings out and fills a nice big chunk of the baby wrap and it’s easy to shrink the feathers down to fit the spaces just right. Over the little bit of wrap around the baby’s face, just switched a single line of feathers and that filled the narrow space perfectly.
Hot Hot Spiral – The background of any goddess quilt is tricky. Do you break down the space to add more designs? Do you leave the background empty and just fill it with a single design?
For a quilt like this, I think simplicity is best. The focal point of this quilt is clearly the goddess in the center. For that reason I picked one simple design and stitched it over the entire background.
Some designs like Pebbling would be a really bad choice for this area because they would take SO much time to quilt. It might not look like it, but the background of any quilt is massive and especially if you’re quilting with one single design, you want to make sure that goes quickly.
Hot Hot Spiral is a great choice because it works a lot like Basic Spiral, but I honestly think it’s even a little easier. In between the swirling open spiral shapes, you quilt flames like Sharp Stippling. It’s the perfect design to fill in the little gaps around the goddess’s hair and body without having to stitch the same design for a million years.
Speaking of which, this actually finished much quicker than I expected. I think I quilted on the hair and face sections for about 4 hours last week, then this week I finished up the rest of the free motion quilting in another 4 hours. Just try to sit down and work at it a bit every day and you'll be finished in no time!
Quilt Along Homework
This is our very last Quilt Along post for Eternal Love! Your homework is to finish quilting the goddess's shirt, baby, and background, then trim the quilt down and bind it with the leftover piece of background fabric.
Click Here to find all of the posts for the Eternal Love Quilt Along
Click Here to learn how to prepare your quilt for binding.
Click Here to learn how to bind a quilt entirely by machine.
Don’t forget to pick up the tools and supplies you need from our quilt shop:
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Let’s go Quilt,
Leah Day
4 comments
I’d love to see other quilters’ goddess quilts and share mine. Can we post pictures somewhere?
Thank you so much, Leah. You explain the process so easily and thoroughly. Appriciate all you do for us. You are a blessing!!!
I really appreciate your showing how to free motion a design into difficult spaces where the design really doesn’t fit. It’s also nice to hear your thought process about where to start and where to progress from there. I have a difficult time with designs that don’t have much structure to them – like stippling. I do much better knowing what shape I’m going to quilt next. Thanks for sharing all your knowledge. It’s very helpful.
Leah- I am enjoying your quilt along. The pattern fit together perfectly! Your tutorials are excellent showing details and explaining techniques.
Thanks so much🤗😃🤗