Thread Talk from My Sewing Machine #10

I feel like I have been running in circles lately.  So I thought a Thread Talk post on quilting circles is in order.

1.  Circles to form a strand of pearls.

<Boring technical details:  Quilting strands of pearls works great for sashing strips that are no more than 1 1/2″ wide, in my experience, when normally I would just quilt in the ditch.  The pearls give the sashing strips a bit of a customized look.  To quilt the circles, simply draw a line down the middle of the strip with a washable fabric marker.  Free-motion quilt the circles using the line as a guide for the center of the circles. >

2.  Circles around applique for a funky twist on echo quilting:

<Boring technical details:   Using circles around appqliued shapes gives echoing with new and stylized twist.  For the quilt block shown above, I echo-quilted very close to the applique, maybe 1/8″ or less, and then, quilted circles on top of the echo before launching into background quilting.  The circles made my applique look more fancy, I think. :)>

3.  Circles of different sizes to just fill in the blank spot.

Quilting circles of different sizes is a great way to practice your circles.  The different sizes makes it easy to hide the occasional not-so-perfect circles, and not to mention the lovely texture the circles create.

<Boring technical details: Just start with a circle anywhere in the area you want to quilt, and add circles as you fill up the area, using smaller circles to fill in the gap between bigger circles.>

4.  Adding circles just for fun!

<Boring technical details: Adding circles on my “tentacles” add visual interest to the quilting.  So, be adventurous and add circles where you normally wouldn’t.  You might be pleasantly surprised by the effect!>

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Different people quilt their circles differently.  Some do the “8” shapes.  Some would quilt a continuous string of semi-circles, and come back with another continuous string of semi-circles to complete the circles.   I found those hard for me to manipulate.  The way I do it is I would go ahead and quite a complete circle, and backtrack on part of the circle to go to the next spot where I want to start another circle.  The process is repeated and repeated until an area is just filled with circles!

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Give circling around circles a try when you quilt your next quilt, and let me know what you think! :)

Have a great week ahead!