Just Use The Fabric As Your Quilting Motif

Old habits sometimes justifiably DON'T DIE! In this case, it's good! When I started machine quilting in the late 90's, I was mostly self taught and my self-training experience embedded deeply into my wee brain. I used a couple of detailed $3.86 printed panel "cheater cloths" made into a quilt sandwich , loaded my machine with clear monofilament top and bottom ( so my boo boos wouldn't show so badly) , and free motion quilted the "OUTLINE" of every possible element of each panel... I mean every flower, flying geese, star block, filler square,triangle.. I mean everything!!!! By the time I finished, I had a good feel for free-motion. It's not nearly as difficult as our non quilter fear makes it out to be.

That was a long ago beginning for me, but I've kept them as a reminder to "just try stuff." Sometimes the magic works! ;-)
... The lesson to bring forward today is... sometimes the printed fabric can make a fantastic quilt plan. Case in point: I know it is September, but I am working on a Christmas wall quilt of one of my ink paintings of "Santa's Secret." I chose a 'fancy'border fabric for this quilt..and I didn't buy alot of it months ago when I planned this... ( I wasn't sure I'd like the fabric because it is a reflective nylon blend ( like flag twirlers use) over which is printed a metallic gold motif of holly leaves and berries and such. It was surprisingly easy to quilt so wish I'd bought more for future use. The quilt plan motif on this piece is the OUTLINE of the metallic gold images( I chose a red thread to disappear into the background). It take a good while to quilt this way, but it's pretty easy, even relaxing, and makes a spectacular finish.

Santa is all but edge bound here... I think he's kind of cuddly!

I'm teaching a class on the painting of an 18" x 24"ink image of Santa's Secret at Houston IQA in November. Students will get a take-home step by step photo/text instruction too on how I quilted each area.