A Rainbow Free Motion Quilting Sampler Quilt

Over the past few months, I’ve made one of my most favourite quilts to date – a free motion quilting sampler quilt. Not only do I love the colours, but I also loved the experience of making it!

I have some prior experience with free motion quilting. I was self-taught with a dash of Craftsy classes (remember those?!) and played quite a bit back then… we’re talking while in Japan, and that’s over 5 years ago now! But since then, I felt like my confidence to do anything more than a loopy meander and some swirls was practically non-existent, and I didn’t know what to do to help me move my skills and confidence along.

I’m also a visual learner – I much prefer to be shown how to do something so that I can really wrap my head around it happens. This was the case for sewing curves, too. I was daunted at the process, saw my friend sew some curves, and that was the lightbulb moment of how it was physically possible to make curved edges become a smooth quilt block!

So when my friend HollyAnne opened up enrolment for Free Motion Quilting Academy last year, and I was in the middle of another strict lockdown and all that jazz, I decided that it was time to learn some new motifs. I was especially eying off graffiti quilting – the epitome of free motion quilting for me!!

You can read my full review of Free Motion Quilting Academy for the full deets on this online quilting class, but in summary, you not only learn how to set up your machine and your space (and your tension!) for quilting, but HollyAnne then proceeds to demonstrate 30 different free motion quilting motifs both by doodling on paper, and also on the machine. These motifs start off simple with meanders, and you build up the skills and confidence to end up with motifs like graffiti quilting and a variety of feathers.

To add to the whole experience, you can officially “graduate” from FMQA (but still retain full lifetime access to the course videos) by completing two projects – a free motion quilting sampler cloth, and a mini wholecloth quilt. HollyAnne has set it up like this so that you actually get the hands-on experience with the motifs and particularly of doing so by quilting a large quilt on your machine.

You can absolutely do this by piecing yardage together to create a wholecloth and marking or stitching the squares, but most students choose to piece blocks of solid fabric in the colours they love to create the quilt top. I wanted to use my Mini Masterpieces Aurifil thread collection, so I went diving in my solids tub to create a rainbow. I added in a few more pieces plus the fabulous binding from Eclectic Mumma, and got to piecing.

I started with the simpler, easier-for-me motifs towards the centre of the quilt, making sure I spread around the different styles of motifs so that all the square and linear designs weren’t bunched into one corner of the quilt. One thing I learned over this whole process though was that trying to do more complex motifs right on the edge of the quilt is harder than if it were one block in because you have less quilt to hold on to maneuver it around! So if you tackle a similar project, keep that in mind.

My original plan was to graduate in December, but when Australia opened back up and we were able to travel for Christmas, my plans changed and my quilt sat on a shelf for a couple of months. But I got back onto it last month, as the current cohort was on the final stretch so that I could graduate with them! And yep, I was quite nervous about the graffiti quilting, but I did a practice first on a mini quilt (with the solid grey backing) before tackling it on the sampler quilt “for real life” #BlueyFan

And at last, I had a finished free motion quilting sampler, bound and ready to get it’s moment in the spotlight! Quite literally, because to get a good photo of the actual quilting, you need some bright sunlight! Top tip – wait for late afternoon and “Golden Hour” to get a beautiful, warm light.

 

I absolutely love the backing fabric – it was juuuust wide enough that I didn’t have to piece it, score! And the binding was an absolute “Duh, of course!” moment when I saw it. Rainbow stripes? Yes, please!

This quilt is most definitely staying with me! Whether it’ll go into the lounge room supply, or be my depths-of-winter extra quilt on my bed, or perhaps a lap quilt in my office, that’s yet to be decided, but there’s certainly no way I’d ever gift this one 😉

If you’d love to have the same kind of journey of confidence and skillzzz, then I invite you to check out Free Motion Quilting Academy! It’s about to open up for the next class this weekend, so now’s the time to jump on the waitlist to be notified as soon as it’s open for enrolment.

Quilt Details

Size: 60″ x 72″
Quilted predominantly with Mini Masterpieces Aurifil thread collection

Quilt top – Assorted solids from assorted brands, mostly Kona
Backing – Australian Floral Navy cotton sateen by Christie Williams for Nerida Hansen Fabrics
Binding – Andover And Z Splatter White

 

I am a proud affiliate of Free Motion Quilting Academy – I adore this course, and love HollyAnne as a teacher, so I highly, truly recommend it.