Quilting a Custom Design

Today I want to share how I put together the beautiful quilting on the Clover Field Runner, in hopes that by seeing the design broken into parts, it won't be such a mystery and maybe a quilting style that looks possible for any project. 

Looking closely at the quilting, it's composed of lines and stippling, easily accomplished on either a longarm or a domestic machine. It just comes down to creative design thinking around the quilt blocks, and then thinking through the quilting steps to successfully achieve the design. 

Let's start with my favorite design tools: a piece of vinyl, found at any fabric store, and a an Expo fine tip WET erase marker (affiliate link).

I used to use the dry erase markers, as they're easily found in most stores, but the ink is super hard to remove from the vinyl. Even with dry erase cleaner, the vinyl does not come completely clean. With the WET erase markers (affiliate link), removal only takes a spritz of water and a paper towel - so much easier!

So here's the vinyl laid over the quilt top, with the majority of the design drawn in. It becomes my reference guide while quilting. 

Important note when using vinyl and any marker: place tape on all edges of the vinyl to eliminate the chance of drawing on the quilt top. Yes, I have done that, and the marker did not come out. So, play it safe, and tape those edges!

My first step in quilting is to stabilize the quilt. This includes stitching down the edges of the quilt in the work area, and completing any stitch-in-the-ditch (SID) around borders and blocks. Once the SID is done, the quilting moves inside the blocks, here with the Irish chain design in the clovers.

Oh yeah - sorry the pictures are not the best. Picture taking took a backseat to the quilting process!

The next step is to form the backbone or outline of the next major elements. Here, it's the two large squares around the four-leaf clover,

and the other smaller squares in the design. 

I always like to add a 1/4" outline stitch around elements, as it really helps the element pop. Here, it's inside the large and small squares.

Now comes the addition of one more design element, the triangles coming off the clovers. And from there, I can fill in the small area with stippling.

Being in the stippling mode, the other areas that need that motif are filled in.

I could have stopped here and left the band around the square puffy, though it's a bit big in surface area. If left empty, the quilt could become 'wavy' because of the areas of really dense quilting combined with big empty areas. 
And that's not a good combo! Quilting should always be balanced, no matter the style.

The final finish is the straight line quilting, backtracking over previous stitching to fill in the area.

See, it's really not that complicated when all the parts are broken into smaller pieces to quilt. It just takes creativity and planning, with a chance to grow those quilting skills.

Happy Quilting!