NOTE : I no longer promote Craftsy/Bluprint as I used to due to the way the subscription is currently being carried out. I had the issue of cancelling my subscription when the company changed hand and I find that cancelling through calls is inconvenient. However, I do still stand behind these classes I promote and if you are subscribed, you can surely check these classes I recommend on the platform. If you are looking for another online platform to learn craft such as quilting, do check out CreativeBug. It is much cheaper in subscription (subscribe now 3 months for only $5). Thank you.
I am sharing with you today how I quilted block 13 – Flying Geese. Through this post, you can learn two specific ways to quilt flying geese blocks.
As usual, I have two blocks made for two quilts, one with custom quilting and one with allover quilting. Both would be a great practice if you are looking towards improving your free-motion skill. I am still practicing myself, especially with the custom quilting. I am learning as I go, so let’s do this together!
NOTE : I no longer promote Craftsy/Bluprint as I used to due to the way the subscription is currently being carried out. I had the issue of cancelling my subscription when the company changed hand and I find that cancelling through calls is inconvenient. However, I do still stand behind these classes I promote and if you are subscribed, you can surely check these classes I recommend on the platform. If you are looking for another online platform to learn craft such as quilting, do check out CreativeBug. It is much cheaper in subscription (subscribe now 3 months for only $5). Thank you.
I am sharing with you today how I quilted block 12 – Right Angle
As usual, I have two blocks made for two quilts, one with custom quilting and one with allover quilting. Both would be a great practice if you are looking towards improving your free-motion skill. I am still practicing myself, especially with the custom quilting. I am learning as I go, so let’s do this together!
NOTE : I no longer promote Craftsy/Bluprint as I used to due to the way the subscription is currently being carried out. I had the issue of cancelling my subscription when the company changed hand and I find that cancelling through calls is inconvenient. However, I do still stand behind these classes I promote and if you are subscribed, you can surely check these classes I recommend on the platform. If you are looking for another online platform to learn craft such as quilting, do check out CreativeBug. It is much cheaper in subscription (subscribe now 3 months for only $5). Thank you.
I am sharing with you today how I quilted block 11 – Four Square
As usual, I have two blocks made for two quilts, one with custom quilting and one with allover quilting. Both would be a great practice if you are looking towards improving your free-motion skill. I am still practicing myself, especially with the custom quilting. I am learning as I go, so let’s do this together!
NOTE : I no longer promote Craftsy/Bluprint as I used to due to the way the subscription is currently being carried out. I had the issue of cancelling my subscription when the company changed hand and I find that cancelling through calls is inconvenient. However, I do still stand behind these classes I promote and if you are subscribed, you can surely check these classes I recommend on the platform. If you are looking for another online platform to learn craft such as quilting, do check out CreativeBug. It is much cheaper in subscription (subscribe now 3 months for only $5). Thank you.
I am sharing with you today how I quilted block 10 – Butterfly Crossing
As usual, I have two blocks made for two quilts, one with custom quilting and one with allover quilting. Both would be a great practice if you are looking towards improving your free-motion skill. I am still practicing myself, especially with the custom quilting. I am learning as I go, so let’s do this together!
I’d like to share with you in this post some of the ways that you can stitch together your basted English Paper Piecing blocks. Be it hexagons, diamonds or even square or any shape possible really :).
This is following the series of English Paper Piecing Technique I have previously on the blog:
I’d like to share with you in this post some of the ways that you can stitch together your basted English Paper Piecing blocks. Be it hexagons, diamonds or even square or any shape possible really 🙂
Yes, EPP isn’t limited to the conventional shape. Check out these awesome EPP projects with non-common shapes if you are into diving in EPP adventures.
As usual, I have two blocks made for two quilts, one with custom quilting and one with allover quilting. Both would be a great practice if you are looking towards improving your free-motion skill. I am still practicing myself, especially with the custom quilting. I am learning as I go, so let’s do this together!
Some links provided here are affiliate links for your convenience. Please find my full disclosure here.
Quilt as you go
Quilt as you go block-by-block is one method you could opt for when you want to make quilting large quilts on your domestic machine feasible. It is one of my go-to methods especially if I want to skip the heavy work pushing through large quilts within my machine throat space.
Besides, I love the fact that I can easily finish blocks by blocks and even have a fancy backing like this one I made earlier. If you are interested to learn how I piece the block together, here is one way how to do it – using small sashing strips.
Spray Basting Quilt Sandwiches
In order to quilt-as-you-go block-by-block, I first made each block into a quilt sandwich, basting with Spray Baste adhesive. I love spray basting as it removes the need to undo pins as you quilt especially for small blocks like these.
You can choose to use the same fabrics for the backing, however, I decided to do mine scrappy solid for the allover quilting quilt and scrappy printed for the custom quilt. The scrappy solid backing will look something like this one I made earlier.
Allover Quilting Motif: Woodgrain
For the allover quilting, I chose to do the woodgrain motif.
Woodgrain motif is fairly simple motif, mostly organic wavy vertical lines across the quilt. I love this motif for a small quilt or small area, and I am yet to try it with larger quilt someday.
To add features to the woodgrain motif, spiral knots are added in here and there in random places to fill up areas and to bring more life to the quilt motif. If you would like to try this motif, I have a simple tutorial here for you.
How to free motion quilt woodgrain motif
You will need:
Pen and Paper
Free motion quilting foot. Read here for more detail info which foot is best.
The right needle. I suggest using top stitch needle as it has a larger eye to avoid wearing off your thread.
Start with a wavy line as far as you like – it doesn’t have to be all the way down to the other side of the quilt (especially if you are quilting large quilt). For this quilt block, since it is fairly small, all of my lines are from one edge to another.
Echo back about a quarter inch from the first wavy line all the way back and begin to create the first knot by making a hook away from the wavy line.
Fill in the hook with spiral hooks coming back out to echo the rest of the wavy line down and back up echoing around the knot.
Keep going by echoing the lines and create another knot to balance the first knot.
Fill up areas with just echoes to avoid too many knot shapes.
repeat echoes. and create a half knot in edges area by simple echoing in v-shape as in figure 6.
continue the pattern and if required, move on to the next area to fill in.
I do suggest you try this pattern with pen and paper first. This will give you the idea on how the final look will be, how you are to navigate from one place to another, and how the motion is.
After having the confidence practicing on paper, you can move onto free motion quilting on scrap fabric basted with leftover batting. This is to ensure you have good tension and have a good sense of moving your quilt in the direction you want it to go. Then you can move onto quilting your block.
make sure you pin this to try them later!
Custom free motion quilting on quilt as you go blocks
For the other quilt, each block is going to be custom quilted, which means each will be designed accordingly with the block pattern.
The benefit of using quilt-as-you-go block is that it is so much easy to maneuver with small blocks and custom quilting is made easier under the throat of a domestic machine. Plus, your shoulder should thank you too!
I planned the custom quilting using Sharon Holland’s colouring page which Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell have available for download in the Intro section. I simply view them in magnified mode on my screen and crop each block into JPG on its own (You can use (shift+command+4 on Mac) or use snips in Microsoft.
Then, I printed the block individually and plan out the quilting with pencils. While doing it with the pencil I also plan how will I be moving the needle from one place to another.
No marking Custom Quilting
For this block, I did not do any markings prior to quilting.
I basically have something in mind on how I would quilt it, sketch them on the printed block and went straight to the machine.
I use a lot of dot-to-dot quilting in this block. In the centre and the yellow rectangles.
For the centre, orange peel again, making a small cathedral window effect. I added some pearls in between echoed lines to bring more details.
To continue with the feather theme I have with all of these custom quilted blocks, I added circular feather around the centre square. I am falling in love with feathers around a curved line. Especially if they go all the way around completing the whole round.
As for the half square triangle corners, I decided to keep it simple and make the printed fabric pop even more by dense matchstick quilting the solid background fabric.
Since I will be piecing these blocks together, I decided to make the points of the triangles in the yellow rectangle about 1/4 inch away from the edge. This way, my points are still going to be there once the blocks are sewn together later when putting the quilt together. I just eyeball this, if you are not confident with eyeballing, you can go ahead and do some marking.
Well, if you decide to join along or have any questions, drop me a comment. I will be happy to help where I can! In the meantime, you can also check these free motion quilting tips!
Click here to related Archive posts.
until next time, have fun sewing and quilting!
NOTE : I no longer promote Craftsy/Bluprint as I used to due to the way the subscription is currently being carried out. I had the issue of cancelling my subscription when the company changed hand and I find that cancelling through calls is inconvenient. However, I do still stand behind these classes I promote and if you are subscribed, you can surely check these classes I recommend on the platform. If you are looking for another online platform to learn craft such as quilting, do check out CreativeBug. It is much cheaper in subscription (subscribe now 3 months for only $5). Thank you.
For more dot-to-dot quilting ideas, I highly recommend this Craftsy Class!
NOTE : I no longer promote Craftsy/Bluprint as I used to due to the way the subscription is currently being carried out. I had the issue of cancelling my subscription when the company changed hand and I find that cancelling through calls is inconvenient. However, I do still stand behind these classes I promote and if you are subscribed, you can surely check these classes I recommend on the platform. If you are looking for another online platform to learn craft such as quilting, do check out CreativeBug. It is much cheaper in subscription (subscribe now 3 months for only $5). Thank you.
I am sharing with you today how I quilted block 8 – Clay’s Choice.
As usual, I have two blocks made for two quilts, one with custom quilting and one with allover quilting. Both would be a great practice if you are looking towards improving your free-motion skill. I am still practicing myself, especially with the custom quilting. I am learning as I go, so let’s do this together!
I have a slow growing flower garden in my sewing room. The one with flowers that blooms and continues to bloom forever.
The slow process of making these English paper pieced flowers from little hexagons is itself a great therapy. I am not shooting to finish fast, rather enjoy doing it little by little from time to time.
Let’s be honest here, I have a problem with too many (way many) works in progress. Ahakz.
NOTE : I no longer promote Craftsy/Bluprint as I used to due to the way the subscription is currently being carried out. I had the issue of cancelling my subscription when the company changed hand and I find that cancelling through calls is inconvenient. However, I do still stand behind these classes I promote and if you are subscribed, you can surely check these classes I recommend on the platform. If you are looking for another online platform to learn craft such as quilting, do check out CreativeBug. It is much cheaper in subscription (subscribe now 3 months for only $5). Thank you.
I am sharing with you today how I quilted block 7 – Dove in the Window.
As usual, I have two blocks made for two quilts, one with custom quilting and one with allover quilting. Both would be a great practice if you are looking towards improving your free-motion skill. I am still practicing myself, especially with the custom quilting. I am learning as I go, so let’s do this together!
Some links provided here are affiliate links for your convenience. Please find my full disclosure here.
Quilt as you go
Quilt as you go block-by-block, is one method you could opt for when you want to make quilting large quilts on your domestic machine feasible. It is one of my go-to methods especially if I want to skip the heavy work pushing through large quilts within my machine throat space.
Besides, I love the fact that I can easily finish blocks by blocks and even have a fancy backing like this one I made earlier. If you are interested to learn how I piece the block together, here is one way how to do it – using small sashing strips.
Allover Quilting Motif: Spirals
For the allover quilting, I chose to do the spirals. Spiral is possibly one of the basic motifs that I like to go for when choosing a design to quilt.
Spiral quilting gives a lot of movement to the quilt and I think that is one of the reason it is one of my favourite motifs.
Spirals can easily be mixed together with other motifs and design to create more textures and movement. I love mixing it together with pebbles and wavy lines. However, to keep this block in uniform with the other blocks, I stick to a single motif for the block with an allover spiral design.
Here is the basic how to make spiral allover quilting.
How to free motion quilt spirals
You will need:
Pen and Paper
Free motion quilting foot. Read here for more detail info which foot is best.
The right needle. I suggest using top stitch needle as it has a larger eye to avoid wearing off your thread.
I do suggest you try this pattern with pen and paper first. This will give you the idea on how the final look will be, how you are to navigate from one place to another, and how the motion is.
After having the confidence practicing on paper, you can move onto free motion quilting on scrap fabric basted with leftover batting. This is to ensure you have good tension and have a good sense of moving your quilt in the direction you want it to go. Then you can move onto quilting your block.
Here is the finished block with the spiral quilting.
make sure you pin this to try them later!
Custom free motion quilting on quilt as you go blocks
For the other quilt, each block is going to be custom quilted, which means each will be designed accordingly with the block pattern.
The benefit of using quilt-as-you-go block is that it is so much easy to maneuver with small blocks and custom quilting is made easier under the throat of a domestic machine. Plus, your shoulder should thank you too!
I planned the custom quilting using Sharon Holland’s colouring page which Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell have available for download in the Intro section. I simply view them in magnified mode on my screen and crop each block into JPG on its own (You can use (shift+command+4 on Mac) or use snips in Microsoft.
Then, I printed the block individually and plan out the quilting with pencils. While doing it with the pencil I also plan how will I be moving the needle from one place to another.
Marking on the block for free motion quilting for quilt as you go blocks
You will need:
Hera marker
Water erasable pen
Quarter inch ruler
On the quilt block, make sure custom quilting are made within the finished block size – which means, you have to mark a 1/4″ frame line from the block seams. This is to ensure that when joining the blocks together, the quilting does not get covered by the seams.
You can mark using a Hera marker or an erasable .
For this block, I decided to try out dot-to-dot quilting technique and skip marking anything on the block itself. I made an orange peel centre using this very technique I learned from Angela’s Class.
As for the flying geese, I decided to leave them popping up by dense quilting the background with matchstick quilting.
Since there is no border in this block, I decided to put the feather element in the four corners to sync with all the previous blocks.
NOTE : I no longer promote Craftsy/Bluprint as I used to due to the way the subscription is currently being carried out. I had the issue of cancelling my subscription when the company changed hand and I find that cancelling through calls is inconvenient. However, I do still stand behind these classes I promote and if you are subscribed, you can surely check these classes I recommend on the platform. If you are looking for another online platform to learn craft such as quilting, do check out CreativeBug. It is much cheaper in subscription (subscribe now 3 months for only $5). Thank you.
Well, if you decide to join along or have any questions, drop me a comment. I will be happy to help where I can! In the meantime, you can also check these free motion quilting tips!
Click here to related Archive posts.
until next time, have fun sewing and quilting!
NOTE : I no longer promote Craftsy/Bluprint as I used to due to the way the subscription is currently being carried out. I had the issue of cancelling my subscription when the company changed hand and I find that cancelling through calls is inconvenient. However, I do still stand behind these classes I promote and if you are subscribed, you can surely check these classes I recommend on the platform. If you are looking for another online platform to learn craft such as quilting, do check out CreativeBug. It is much cheaper in subscription (subscribe now 3 months for only $5). Thank you.
For more dot-to-dot quilting ideas, I highly recommend this Craftsy Class!
There are a couple of well-known ways to baste English paper piecing templates.
While there are no right or wrong, I’d like to point out some of the pros and cons of the template basting techniques based on my thoughts (some may have a different opinion). So in this post let’s go through a couple of methods of basting english paper piecing pieces.
If you haven’t tried English Paper Piecing (EPP for short), it is a form of patchwork done with paper templates basted to the fabric to keep the fabric in shape. It is suitable for lots of different shapes that fit like a puzzle. Mostly these are geometrical shapes which can be stitched together into beautiful shapes and mandalas. You can see some example in this post.
If you have been EPP-ing quite a while, let me know which one is your favorite basting technique and why. If you have a different way than the one I have mentioned, share it with us, please…
Various English Paper Piecing Basting Method
There are affiliate links provided in this post for your convenience. I may earn a small commission when you purchase at NO cost to you. Please find my full disclosure here.
1. Stitch/Sew basting onto both fabrics and paper
This is one of the first methods I tried when I started EPP. I like a couple of things about this method, but in the end, I find it too much of a hassle to remove the paper.
Basting simply means you can just do a running stitch punching through the fabrics and paper around the templates. You can see an example of this in the stripey hexagon in the center of the photo above.
The benefit of this method is that the paper is securely attached to the fabric. This makes it wonderful for securing it while finishing all around each side. Particularly important when fussy cutting and you want the paper template to be in the exact position.
Pros: Easy quick basting stitch. Secures paper well to fabric.
Cons: May leave stitch holes on the surface. Need to remove the basting stitches then the paper.
2. Stitch/Sew basting on fabrics only not paper
This one is my favorite basting technique as I don’t like removing paper and this method makes that step easier and I can re-use my templates.
Here is a brief tutorial on how to stitch baste only the corners:
3. Glue Basting
This is one of the common ways modern EPP-ers are rocking it. It is fast, quick, and easy to baste.
The question that people always ask about this method is all type of glue stick okay?
Honestly, I don’t find any difference in the specific glue stick or the regular glue stick your kids use. The only difference is probably the size of the tip and the blue colour makes it easy to see.
I have great success with the cheap purple glue stick before.
I find that the cheaper the glue stick is probably best as it doesn’t stick so well and makes it easy to remove the paper later.
Here is a video of me glue basting:
However, with the glue stick basting method, I do find that removing the paper will not be as easy as removing it if I were to stitch baste (on the fabric only, not paper). But it is not too bad either.
Here is a video of me removing the paper from glue basted pieces:
Pros: fast, easy to get. Portable.
Cons:Costly (if using the EPP exclusive glue stick). A little bit of work when removing the paper later. Can be sticky and messy.
4. Starch Basting
Have you heard or seen this one?
I love the idea of it but it looks a bit tedious that I haven’t even got time to try it myself.
I am thinking that a regular cheap paintbrush with a cup of starch or even easier, try this brush pen. Fill it in with starch water and starch away. Easy and clean.
Pros:No need to remove paper! The solid crease line can guide sewing better. Cheaper as compared to the EPP gluestick.
Cons:Not so portable as it requires ironing. And you may need to buy those mini iron if you don’t have one yet. Need electrical port unless your iron works on battery.
Well, this one wouldn’t be so paper-y would it? Shall we still call it English paper piecing then? It is similar to the idea of the EPP technique, so we’ll keep it here as another option.
This technique uses a fusible fleece as the templates as opposed to papers. These fusible have to be cut into the shape of the EPP pieces required and basted to the fabric using the fusible glue on the fleece. The fusible sides are activated to stick once heated using the iron.
Basically, you will have to fold the fabric edges and iron them to stick to the fusible fleece.
I haven’t tried this one yet, but the thought of having to carefully iron on the edges scares me and I feel like it is too much work. But it might be worth a try. I am thinking that with these, you may not need to remove the fusible fleece at all. They are soft enough to be in a quilt.
Pros:No need to remove the paper. No messy glue residue.
Cons:Cost. Need to cut out fleece shapes. Need ironing. Not so portable. Fleece can be a little too soft to create sharp edges.
Which method do you use? Not listed here?
Drop a comment and let us know how you baste you EPP pieces. We’d love to hear them.
Or if you have a tip on how to do either of them, share them too, please 🙂 I know you are all full of wisdom.
or an erasable 
.
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