Friday, August 31, 2012

Friday Finishes - Relaxed Finished Edges. . .

I have covered a few applique finished edges that I like to use here in the past.  All finished edge techniques have a very controlled way about them.  This quilt that I am going to teach caused me to look a little differently at these controlled finishes and try something new.
It all began with this Toni Whitney pattern "Backdoor Bear."  Toni developed this pattern for beginners to introduce them to fusible applique and machine quilting.  
Once appliqued, I selected the threads to use for stitching the raw edges which also quilts the piece at the same time.

Unlike my usual raw edge quilting of following the fabric shapes, Toni choose to stitch a more meandering style to cover the edges.  So I decided to do the same.  As I am going to teach this technique, I also tried free-motion quilting a little differently.  I put on my free-motion presser foot as usual, but didn't drop my feed dogs.  Instead, as I read in an article by Leah Day, I kept my feed dogs up and changed the straight stitch length to 0.  I wanted to see if this may be easier for new machine quilters to have control while stitching.
Here I have quilted all of the greenery in the meandering style.  It's easy and there are no such things as "mistakes."  It's all good :)
Although difficult so see, the bear and tree trunk are straight stitched.  I didn't, however, worry about following the line exactly.  In fact, I attempted to keep my lines from being too straight to keep with the relaxed look.  I did enjoy this enough to do it again and am sure it will be simple for a beginner to grasp.  The feed dogs up did allow for more control while stitching.  Definitely worth a try.

Happy Friday,




3 comments:

Rossy said...

Hello Karri
How are you?Im so sorry the last time I don´t have to much time to write.
But today I only do funny things for me...The children going to a B-party and Im here alone..jipii.
The bear its really beautiful...I look to the Quilt and I think I stay in the Wood..
I look now for the technik.Thanks for this beautiful BEARpost.
Hugs and Greatings from Berlin

Rossy said...

Dear Karri
I will send you a picture with the books I have....I buy some boks but I dont start to work with them....maybe you can tell me,wich book ist the best.
Hugs
rossy

Unknown said...

Hi Karri

Looks superb and I'm very encouraged to try. What brand sewing machine do you sew on? I tried unsuccessfully to FMQ on a PFAFF Ambition 1.5 with feed dogs up and stitch length to 0 and ended up with nests underneath.