Going in Circles: A Tutorial on Quilting Circles with your Walking Foot

I have a  confession. I am afraid of Free Motion Quilting. If you are a regular visitor to my bog this is not such a secret, and you will know that I am always tying to find ways around it. While straight lines are my best friend, I do try to branch out. This past weekend I experimented  with sewing circles using my walking foot. I thought it might be nice to put together a little tutorial on what I learned

 

Quilting Circles With a Walking Foot

You will need:

• A round shape to trace (I am using bowls)
• A marking tool of your choice (I am using a Frixion Pen)
• Walking foot
• Scissors, thread, iron...the regular stuff

Step 1
Prepare your project. In this example I am Quilting As You Go some on Patchwork Wheel Blocks. I am addicted to QYAG and have done a little tutorial on that which you can find here and here. Quilting circles is a great option for QYAG since you have to be able to move your block around continuously. So small projects are good!

Step 2

Chose a round household item to suit the size of circles that you want. I really wanted to emphasize the wheel in the blocks, so chose to do radiating circles. I was looking around the house and spied these bowls:

These were perfect, not too small (smaller circles can be harder to manoeuvre around) and they radiated out perfectly. You could use dinner plates, pie plates, jar tops, whatever suits you! No need to buy fancy rulers for this project :)  

Step 3
Use your tracing tool to trace the circles on to your block. Now, this is the exciting part. I have recently discovered the Pilot Frixion Pen. I don't think these pens were originally designed for fabrics. They are an erasable pen, and when you run your iron over the ink on your fabric, the heat makes it disappear

Step 4 
Next, to the machine you go. Fit your machine with your walking foot, and thread of your choice. Start stitching, following the curve of your traced lines. In this type of work, slow and steady wins the race. The slower you go, the more control you will have as you work your way around.  

note to self - next time dust walking foot before close up photo shoot

Step 5 
With all of your circles done, head to the ironing board. Simply iron over the stitched lines and the Frixion Pen lines disappear! (I have no stocks in Black & Decker by the way) 

ummmm, right. This is a great close up of my overshoot as I tried to join my circle ends. So lesson learned there, GO SLOW and your ends will join better than mine :) I did get better over time.

Step 6 
Enjoy your handiwork! You now have a block with quilted circles! I can't wait to put all of my blocks together. I think the effect is going to be great.

I hope you enjoyed this little lesson. I am off to finish my circles on the rest of the blocks!
Adrienne

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