You really can't find an easier machine quilting design than wiggles! This super simple design adds a beautiful, flowing texture over your quilts and it's quite a different effect from the straight line designs we've learned previously.
For this design, I started in the middle of my T-shirt quilt block and quilted a long, diagonal wiggle from corner to corner.
Moving on, I machine quilt evenly spaced wiggly echoes about 1-inch apart. I filled in one side of the block, then quilted along the outer edge to reach the opposite side and filled it in the same way.
The trick to quilting wiggles with your walking foot is how you position your hands and pivot the quilt in the machine. Watch this machine quilting video to see what I mean!
The trick to this design is placing your hands and keeping the movement of the quilt smooth and even as you feed it through the machine. Yes, you can quilt deeper curves, as we learned when we machine quilted echoing, but they generally take more time and repositioning on the machine. I find for quilting deeper curves I also have to lift the foot a lot so having a knee lifter is pretty essential.
Are wiggles easier to machine quilt with a walking foot or in free motion? This is really debatable. With a walking foot, you're guaranteed evenly spaced stitches because the foot evenly feeds the quilt through the machine. However, the walking foot is so large, it's harder to pivot the quilt to create the smooth curves.
Machine quilting in free motion, you have a lot more to worry about than just moving the quilt. You also have to focus on the speed of your machine and the movement of your hands, and keep the two in balance as you feed the quilt through the machine, creating the wiggly design.
Learn more about machine quilting with the following easy designs!
