Welcome back to more skills and drills with the free motion.
Today we’re working on a basic twist that can be used as a fill or a single motif.
Let’s get started.
Ya look at this if you will here.
And I’ve even left my thread tail connected so you can see where I started.
I want to walk you through the basics of this basic twist.
I was also kind of calling it a braid in my mind so if I mess up in today’s video and
call it a braid, you know I mean twist, right?
And it’s a real basic kind of an S curve and follow.
Down in the description below next to that subscribe button of course we have your free
printable.
Please print these out.
And take some time and even use like a sharpie marker or a pen or pencil and just trace over
the lines a few times.
Get your body ingrained in the motor memory of the design.
For this one we’re going to start kind of down at the base.
And we’re going to do kind of a gradual S curve up and then follow the line back.
And one of the keys is that the lines kind of stay skinny, get wide and then skinny back
together to form kind of that bump in the twist, right?
So it’s very simple to do.
It takes a little bit of practice and then I’ll teach you a few other fun little steps
and things that you can do down the road.
But let’s get right into this because like I said I want to show you about three different
ways of doing it.
So on my machine, let me remind you I have the Sew Slip mat.
I don’t even know if you can see that but that’s the teflon and silicone combo mat
that works beautiful.
Turns your sewing machine into an ice skating rink.
And then I love the Machingers little gloves here that have the silicone tips.
So it just takes me a second to get them on my hands.
But this gives me great grip like Spider Man climbing a wall.
And that gives great traction and no friction which helps eliminate a lot of the fatigue
on our body.
And if you’ve seen our other videos we talk about fatigue as our enemy.
So we don’t want to be tight in our shoulders.
And let’s get this machine rolling.
Now I’m down here and I’m going to make sure my presser foot is low.
I’m going to take one simple stroke and see if I can bring up my bobbin thread.
I used a thread cutter so I can see that I’ve got a little thread tail there so instead
of trying to bring the tail up I’m going to stitch it into place, a couple of locking
stitches.
And now what we’re going to do is we’re going to start with a simple S curve heading
away from ourselves, just like that, ok?
So we can take a second trim out that thread tail and then from this S curve I’m going
to come around one side and back in.
So narrow getting a little bit wider, see that wider and then coming back in nice and
narrow, following that line.
So that’s the simple motion over and over again.
But now we’re going to start making it go somewhere.
So I’m going to come back up.
And I can stop and touch in, go wide like this.
But where am I going?
I’m heading into my lap.
We don’t want to go that direction.
So one of the first things you can do is at the same start spot come up and then just
perimeter that, keep it going a little bit wider and touch.
And then you want to extend up that direction because that’s going to give us the place
where we’re heading to.
So tip, wide.
And now what I’m going to do is I’m going to come about halfway down that S curve and
I’m going to stop and I’m going to come back up.
And this is where we begin making that twist.
Past, almost down, past.
And you can see that I’m starting to control where I want to head by where I’m taking
that tip of the S curve.
So now these remind me of the ice cream cones, like soft serve ice cream in the summer and
I just love that.
Now let’s go back to our other sample for a second and talk about a few things that
can happen.
I think this will make the most sense as you look at some of the finished stitching.
And I did this on purpose to help point out.
Some of you may have never free motion quilted before and some of this stuff that makes a
lot of sense to me might be completely new to you.
And this is the first point I want to point out.
When you use a lot of thread and you start and stop in the same place you’ll notice
that the color of that thread starts to become more intense.
So in a curved motion like this where I keep coming back to the same spot you want to be
careful to not overdo it to the same spot too many times because that will intensify
your threads.
So you can see here there’s a point, a point.
I overdid it.
Came back up a point, a point.
Something else I did in this design that I want you to be careful of.
I wanted to make sure you don’t miss.
I’m not sure if you can get in that close and see or not but you can see that I didn’t
connect that tip.
I wish it would have connected and then sometimes I will go over the tip and I wish that that
wouldn’t happen.
Let me move this down slightly.
You can see over here and again I’m being very, very particular today.
But that is where I’ve actually missed that S curve.
So funny enough I was playing with this design and I wanted to create some new designs.
And you know I love the book from Christina Camelly, the Free Motion Quilting: Step by
Step Designs.
And this believe it or not happened exactly like this.
I thought, I wonder what else Christina has that I can learn today.
And as I opened the book this was the page I turned to.
It was our twist design we’re working on but with a whole new formula.
So I want to show you the way Christina does it also because maybe that will work better
for you, right?
So what she really does is she first makes the hourglass shape and then she fills it
in.
And that looks like this.
Here we are back at the machine.
So she’s going to make these little teardrop shapes.
And I remembered I just used the thread cutter so once again not the best of starts.
But we’re going to do a little bit of that.
And then we’re going to come up here and just going to do kind of teardroppy shape
and back down to the corner.
Then she runs up a side and then starts to head over to the side in that kind of S curving
fashion.
Back around.
So it’s like if you’re at the bottom you’re driving upward and curving up.
If you’re at the top you’re going wide and then curving back down.
Hopefully you can see that there.
And then the fun thing about her design is she can go right from one of these tips yet
into another hourglass shape or teardrop shape I guess I should call that that starts to
form the hourglass.
And as I was saying earlier these are great fills but I’m always looking for designs
that will help me go from one spot to the next.
So I like a design like this that I can do a lot with.
And so on my sample after I practice with Christina’s work there’s the two coming
together.
You can see I tried to do it like she did in her book where I had them running basically
hips and valleys, hips and valleys, that hourglassy shape.
Now we’re looking at the back of the project.
I can tell because of my thread ball right there so let’s flip it right back over.
Here’s the top but I also want you to notice this is the very first amount of stitching
that I ever did in my practice.
So look how boxy and square that is, right?
So if your first one is boxy and square, hey join the club.
Now some of the last ones that I did look a lot smoother.
Now I’m an expert, right?
I’ve done six of them or eight of them.
However many are there.
But I do want to point out for me having that box or that shape to work in at the beginning
was much more challenging.
You could see I kept sewing over my lines.
So the reason I wanted to point out in today’s video both approaches to this kind of motif
or this kind of fill is so that you have something that is very easy for you to work with, ok?
In either direction.
Now the last little step in how to before we get the big quilt out and just play for
awhile is oops I moved my sandwich is how do you morph this.
How do you go in different directions.
What do you do if it’s an all over design versus a border style design.
And basically what I’ve done is I just used that S curve to go in a variety of directions.
And I’m just going to stall for a few seconds here while I re-thread my machine.
And you’ll be able to see that I can actually do it with my gloves on which is a real benefit.
But I’ve got to get that thread tail cut nice and small.
And come on baby, work with me.
There she is, perfect, ok.
So yes you can definitely thread sewing machines with these gloves on, right?
Now quickly back into this I’m just going to start randomly running off in a couple
of different directions on the fabric not at the mouth.
We’re going to try to stay focused here and show you how you can kind of just go everywhere
with this, alright?
So I believe I’ve used that thread cutter again so we’re just going to tie in right
now, come up and stop like we did the first time.
Get the thread tail out of the way because it just distracts me visually.
And now I’m going to come back in for the first leg.
And I’m doing these my style.
Now what we’re going to do is we’re going to take this in a new direction.
I’m going to curve it back around.
And I can come back around in here and now watch what happens.
I’m going to come to the tip, but I can come to the other side of my motif just the
same.
But now when I come down around here, look I just came off in a new direction.
I can come and fill that gap a little bit.
And what I really love is what happens when we get going in a couple of unique directions
in the way that that plays together.
And that’s when having all of those threads coming at different angles and building up
can be really a neat trick too.
I’m feeling pretty warmed up with my basic twist now I’ve got my big man sampler quilt
what we call this thing out on the table.
One reason is because I want to remind you whenever you’re doing your free motion work
you’re not quilting the entire quilt with each stitch.
You’re only quilting in small sections and that’s all I want you to focus on is just
the little bit that you’re working on at a time.
So I’m going to work in this area for a little while.
You know I love to have my music on so I’m going to turn the music up for all of you.
You can just watch and enjoy.
I won’t do much talking because it gets a little distracting at this point for me.
With the rhythm and the way I’m going to go in different directions starting down in
this corner.
And you can use that basic twist to have a lot of fun.
Now if you haven’t ever done a really big project, one of the things I’m doing is
I’m getting all of the weight of the quilt loose around me so that I can really work
and I can really move.
So I’m kind of doing a test move here.
And I also have stitching right here and stitching right here which means that I can remove this
pin as well.
So I’m getting my workspace prepared I’m going to come down in this bottom corner because
that’s where I want to start.
Make sure my presser foot is down, see if I can bring up that thread tail for us properly
this time.
Oop still nice and low, thread cutter.
I’ve got to stop doing that.
Ok here we go.
I’m just going to take a couple of stitches, turn up the music and we will see you next
time right here at Man Sewing.
Enjoy the free motion.