Meander wave quilting pattern how to#
Meander wave quilting pattern series#

I have stacks and stacks of practice pieces that I’m not sure what I’m going to do with. It may take a lot of practice, but what better way to use up that fabric that you don’t really like anymore? Speaking of which, both Angela and Christa Watson encourage you to practice quilting on actual quilt tops.

Meander wave quilting pattern series#

What I really want you to take away from this series on machine quilting, is that if I can come up with something that is halfway decent, then anyone can.

Meander wave quilting pattern how to#

Angela gives lots of variations on how to improv quilt, as well as tips on how to keep the quilting a consistent size.īoth of these motifs were WAY outside of my comfort zone, but both ended up being really enjoyable. The hardest part for me is just remembering the motifs that I know! As silly as it might sound, I found that creating a cheat sheet of all the designs that I know was helpful, so that I could just glance over and be inspired to try a different motif. All it entails is quilting out several different motifs mixed together to fill a space. I had never tried it myself, and was excited to give it a try. Now this is a design that I admire in other people’s quilting. It still needs a lot of work, but I pushed through and tackled a design that was a complete disaster the first time I tried it. I also tried to sketch it on paper whenever I thought about it–really trying to get that muscle memory going.

But, knowing that I had write this post, I determined to find little pockets of time to sit down at the machine and practice.

I don’t mean to give you excuses, but I went on a lovely vacation to Napa Valley with my hubby to celebrate our anniversary during the time I was supposed to be practicing this design, and then I was at QuiltCon for three days! So, once again, I did not get in as much practice as I would have liked. But once I try to tackle it on a spiral, well, let’s just say that I find it difficult. When I do it just traveling up a single spine, I do a better job of making the half-heart shape. I also have problems just making the “feather” shape. The biggest one was not making the feather big enough, and really filling the spiral. I practiced this design a lot on paper first (rather unsuccessfully), then I checked out the trouble-shooting section and found I was making a lot of common mistakes.

Really, one of the best things about this book is the step-by-step drawings, especially if you are a visual learner. I have the book as an ebook, and at one point, I literally put a piece of paper on top of my iPad mini and traced it a few times. Once again, the step-by-step drawings of how to draw the design are invaluable. And since I’m not good at swirls and I’ve never done feathers–well, you get the picture. This design ( click here for Angela’s sample, scroll to the bottom of the page) combines swirls and feathers. I’ve been a little nervous about this week’s designs, because…feathers! Now granted, they are not traditional feathers, but still.

You can check out previous weeks here: Week 1: Basic meanders, Week 2: Swirls, Week 3, Paisley and leafy meanders. Here we are already at the final week of working my way through Angela Walter’s new book Free-Motion Meandering.