in this video i'm going to show you how to do a meander that is free motion quilting when
we do free motion quilting we need two pieces of fabric always cotton i always use cotton and also
the bit in the middle which is batting this helps to stabilize your fabric when you are
doing your stitches make sure that your fabric is pressed obviously you'll be doing this on a quilt
or on a placemat or whatever you're doing your free motion quilting
on i'm obviously going to do it on a little sample piece to show you guys
i have lots of videos on my youtube channel on how to create a quilt from scratch and showing
you how to make a quilt sandwich so go and check out those videos once you've watched me do this
so i am just going to sandwich these pieces together so i have this piece here i'm going
to put my batting piece on top of that and then another piece of quilting fabric on top of that
like so if you wanted to pin your little sample go ahead and do so
i'm just going to leave it like this this is the babylock soprano i pretty much do all
of my videos on the babylock soprano i am not paid or sponsored to create this video
in my top thread today i actually have some floriani thread i also use glide and also used a
brand on amazon too i like to use the same thread in my bobbin as what i am using in the needle
so what i do is i set my stitch on just a regular straight stitch and i always get the same question
on my youtube videos never do any sort of free motion quilting video is what is the length of
the stitch well it doesn't actually matter and the reason being is because we drop the feed dogs
so i'm going to take this arm off here
and at the back of the machine is this switch i'm going to move it and then that lowers these
feed dogs now i've taken away the ability of the machine to move the fabric i am now going
to remove the fabric for the machine and that is why it doesn't really matter what stitch length
that you select on your machine i just basically keep it on whatever stitch length that it says
on a regular stitch a straight stitch when i am free motion quilting i use this like open toe foot
like the whole shank comes off my machine and i put this foot on so i'm going to start right at
the side of my work here and i'm just going to lower my needle down and bring it back up again
this will then draw the bobbin thread up so if you see this thread here this is the
bobbin thread so you're gonna pull that up and bring it out of the way so you're
gonna have the thread coming from the top of the needle and you're gonna have the bobbin thread
i think most people struggle with free motion quilting because they can't actually visualize
what it is that they want to do and when you think of a meander think about a river so when you think
of a river it's curving in and out and in and out so when you're doing your free motion quilting i
want you to think like you are a river and you're creating a stream all the way around that fabric
it's easy when you know how hey another thing with free motion quilting is is that you want to match
your hand movements with that needle going up and down we have taken the machine's ability away
to move the fabric and you are now moving the fabric you are now creating the stitch lengths
so it's up to you to control that speed so if you find that you can't match it you're gonna have to
play a little bit with your speed settings on your sewing machine so right here i have the
speed dial and i can bring it all the way up to the top or take it all the way right back down
i find that my free motion quilting is much better when i have the sewing machine cranked
up right to the top you may be different to me so you really need to practice this
and figure out what speed that you are comfortable with when you are doing your free motion quilting
another thing is i always find it best to leave my hands flat like this and move the fabric around i
see people doing stuff like this and i find it's not very comfortable and i always when
i change their hands to lying flat they are they do so much better in an instant so i want you to
remember what a river looks like and we're gonna start doing this meander free motion stitching
so we just start filling in
all of the fabric
and don't panic just slow down and think about just filling in the areas and try
not to have the design being exactly the same all the way across this is not edge to edge quilting
this is we are creating a meander and we want it to look different all over the space
and if you have to stop just stop try not to stop on a curve and then just keep going
so if you find you are getting eyelashes in your work that always happens on a curve
and i'll tell you why it's happening is because you are going far too fast around the corners
so you need to slow down and go at the same speed that you're going on like on the straights
i'm going to take my speed down and see if i can actually do it slow it down
see it looks pretty cool so you just go around and you fill your work
just don't panic and don't jerk the fabric go very
slowly
and just think about how a river would look if it was twisting through the countryside
if you find that you can go one way and not the other way just try rotating your fabric around
just move your fabric to the way that you find is more comfortable for you
and this is what a free motion quilting meander looks like and no you don't need stitch regulation
don't let anybody tell you that you need stitch regulation what you need to do
is practice practice good machine good quality thread and perhaps a new needle
this is a close-up of my stitches so this is on the front of the quilt and these are my stitches
on the reverse of my quilt also tension not a problem i have no problem with my tension on
my sewing machine whenever i'm doing free motion quilting again i would like to say that you need
to practice a meander is one of the easiest free motion quilting that you can do on your quilt
if you have any questions please leave them down below i always answer all of my questions
and don't forget to subscribe to my channel so you don't miss my next video
thanks for watching bye guys