FMQ samples – part 13 – ORANGE PEEL variations

This Spring is my first as a home-and-garden-owner. In my previous houses I only had a balcony and now I have a decently sized garden with flowering plants. The gorgeous blooms inspired this pattern which I have called FANTASY.

The red sample above shows the elaborated version of the pattern shown in the tutorial in blue pen. The blue variation is stitched out the same on the first pass (from left to right). I have added a little leaf-like shape in the tip of the flower petal while hopping back on the second pass to the beginning of the pattern (from right to left).

This next pattern is also inspired by my garden. There is no real leaf or flower that looks like this, but I like how the pattern conveys the movement of leaves in the wind. It is also not too girly and can be used an a quilt for nature-loving guy. The pattern is called WILD.

The main trick to get this pattern right is to keep curving back to the spine of the leaf. This curving-back motion is a bit different from other Freemotion patterns, so practice this pattern on paper first. The sample (black, above) was stitched out on a 2 inch grid and I remarked it with 4 circles. Sometimes I encounter a picture /drawing of a pantograph that I really like. Sometimes I try them out as a freemotion pattern, like this one. The original design is from Anita Shakleford. (link, non-affiliated). For this sample I used a 1 inch grid and I added in some reference lines. I found this pattern pretty hard to do freehand. The pattern moves upwards and you can’t really tell if you are doing it well. My sewing machine was blocking the view actually. Maybe I need to try this pattern again, but turn the quilt 90 degrees so I will stitch from left to right and vise versa. My machine really doesn’t like this motion as is does sometimes skip stitches. That might be the reason to stitch this vertically on a domestic machine. If you are using a longarm or midarm, would that be something to consider too??? I think that you would stitch this out horizontally (90 degrees turned) on a longarm so you wouldn’t have to advance the quilt in the middel of a pattern, right? You would just add a new row of flames, correct?

After stitching out this flame-like sample I opted for a pattern with a bit less spiky and curvy lines. This basketweave pattern was pretty easy to stitch, but please don’t create too curvy lines. Mine are even too curvy. I believe that a less curvy line would be better. So less curve is better for a basketweave. I found a lovely example on Cindy Needham’s Pinterest board (link)