Ways to Use Quilting

Excerpted from The Ultimate Guide to Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters by Angela Walters. Copyright © 2024 by C&T Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

QUILTING ADDS MOVEMENT

Quilting can help create a sense of movement and is one of the easiest ways to add an extra element of artistry to a quilt. It not only moves the viewer’s eyes along the quilt surface, but it also makes the quilt more dynamic and interesting.

Moonrise: Pieced and machine quilted by Angela Walters

Realistic Movement

If you have a recognizable image on your quilt top, such as a car or a kite, using quilting to add movement will make it look even more realistic. To make a car look like it is moving across the quilt, for example, add swirls to suggest smoke or wind behind the car. A kite that is flying high would need wind, so stitch swirls to represent the wind. Don’t feel as though you have to make every part of a quilt look as though it’s moving. Consider adding just a little movement to a part of the quilt. The Shooting Stars quilt, below, has four stars—but to make just one of them look like a shooting star, I added some wavy lines from the star in the upper right to the edge of the quilt. This helps give the appearance of movement without being overwhelming.

Pieced and quilted by Angela Walters

Other Kinds of Movement

Sometimes you may want to use quilting to add movement to a quilt that is more abstract. In Megapixel, at left, the colors flow in a wavy pattern. I knew that quilting an allover design wouldn’t help emphasize the quilt’s movement. Instead, I quilted lines that loosely followed the flow of the colors.

First I drew a few guidelines on the quilt to mark how I thought the colors flowed. Then I echo-quilted these lines again and again. In areas where the stitching intersected, I simply filled in with more lines, echoing the top and bottom areas.

Choosing the Right Designs

When choosing quilting designs, remember that any kind of design that moves the viewer’s eye across the quilt will work for adding movement—swirly designs, wavy lines, and even straight lines. Experiment with different designs and different ways to use them.

...

Angela Walters is a machine quilter and author who loves teaching others to use quilting to bring out the best in their quilt tops. Her work has been published in numerous magazines, and she is the author of several books. She lives in Kansas City, MO. quiltingismytherapy.com