Welcome back to the Machine Quilting Party! I have a super simple quilting design to teach you today. If you liked quilting Pinstripes, you will love quilting Pinstripe Ziggie!
Learn how to quilt it in this walking foot quilting tutorial:
Click Here to find the book Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day. Inside you'll find 30 fun walking foot quilting designs with tips on how to use them in real quilts. This book also includes the quilt pattern for Marvelous Mosaic, the quilt we're making together with these squares!
Tips for Quilting Pinstripe Ziggie with Walking Foot Quilting
I quilted Pinstripe Ziggie using a guide bar on my walking foot to create the 1-inch spacing between the lines. The narrower distance was 1/4-inch and that's a bit tricky because my walking foot had a little groove to indicate that distance, but it's hard to see on the quilt.
So this is a design you might want to mark on your quilt if you want the lines to be perfectly spaced. It won't take much time and that will ensure you get perfect placement of lines 1/4 and 1 inch apart.
Another alternative is to widen the spacing. If I used the edge of my walking foot as a guide, I could space the lines 1/2 inch apart for the narrower spacing and then 2 inches apart for the wider areas. This will work, but only if the rating of your batting allows it.
Learn more about the rating of your batting and how much quilting your quilts need in the Basting Basics Workshop.
Just a quick reminder about my machine settings:
For walking foot quilting I always set the stitch length to 1.5 mm and place a Queen Supreme Slider on my sewing table to the left of the feed dogs like so:
However, for this Marvelous Mosaic Quilt, I have Minky fabric on the back which likes to grip the machine and table. When using this fabric on the back, I increase the stitch length to 2.5 mm.
What's that weird thing on top of my machine? That's a small magnetic pincushion and a cheater needle. I keep those handy for tying off and burying loose thread tails as I quilt. Click Here to check them out.
Watch Those Direction Changes!
When quilting either line spacing, it can be a bit tricky to know exactly when to change direction to create this nice, evenly spaced ziggie line.
This is one time that the walking foot can be a bit of a bummer. It takes up a lot of space on the quilt and makes it hard to see the area you've just quilted. The best thing to do is mark a dot on the quilt where you guestimate (or measure with a ruler) the lines should turn.
That way you won't get in a position where your walking foot is on the quilt and blocking your ability to see whether you should take a few more stitches or you've already overshot the line. With the little dot marked, you have a spot to aim for and you can speed up as you quilt the straight lines.
Take a Lighter Hand
If you notice your stitches changing in size and becoming bigger or smaller, that's a sign you should take a lighter hand on the quilt. A walking foot is meant to walk, meaning it's meant to stitch and pull the quilt forward. If your stitches are fluctuating, that's a sign you are pushing on the quilt a bit too much and causing the stitches to get bigger.
Remember a walking foot uses the feed dogs and it's responsible for guiding your quilt through the machine. Let it do its job! Just use your fingertips to steer the quilt and beautiful, even, identical stitches will follow.
Would you like to learn new machine quilting designs and make a big, beautiful quilt?
That's what we're making with Marvelous Mosaic!
We're quilting all 30 designs from the book Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day and we're going to connect together the best 20 to create the Marvelous Mosaic Quilt.
Click Here to find all the walking foot quilting videos I've shared so far. We're making three quilts together from this book and you can join in the fun and follow along anytime!
Let's go quilt,
Leah Day
Find more walking foot quilting tutorials by clicking the links below:
