I am sharing with you today how I quilted block 25 – Prairie Queen.

(note: I am posting out of order of the block number)

If you are new here, this post is a part of my quilt-as-you-go my Sewcial Bee Sampler, a sew-along hosted by Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell. I plan to share along the process with some tips and tutorial.

As usual, I have two blocks made for two quilts, one with custom quilting and one with allover quilting. Both would be a great practice if you are looking towards improving your free-motion skill. I am still practicing myself, especially with the custom quilting. I am learning as I go, so let’s do this together!

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Quilt as you go

Quilt as you go block-by-block is one method you could opt for when you want to make quilting large quilts on your domestic machine feasible. It is one of my go-to methods especially if I want to skip the heavy work pushing through large quilts within my machine throat space.

Besides, I love the fact that I can easily finish blocks by blocks and even have a fancy backing like this one I made earlier. If you are interested to learn how I piece the block together, here is one way how to do it – using small sashing strips.

Spray Basting Quilt Sandwiches

In order to quilt-as-you-go block-by-block, I first made each block into a quilt sandwich, basting with Spray Baste adhesive. I love spray basting as it removes the need to undo pins as you quilt especially for small blocks like these.

You can choose to use the same fabrics for the backing, however, I decided to do mine scrappy solid for the allover quilting quilt and scrappy printed for the custom quilt. The scrappy solid backing will look something like this one I made earlier.

I recommend having about 2-3″ wider batting and backing to make it easier to quilt the area around the edges of the block. I made mine kind of tight, and I find that it is hard to move the quilt with so little to hold on to when the quilting gets so close to the edge. Well, lesson learnt.

Allover Quilting Motif: Heart Loops

For the allover quilting, I chose the simple loopy loop again but with a little variation by making each loop a heart shape.

I find that it is much harder than then the simple loopy loop as shown earlier here, though very much similar.

In loopy loop, the movement is smooth and making circle loops is much easier. As we change it to a heart shape loop, we have to stop in the middle of making the loop to create the crest of the heart. Hence, that movement is no longer a fast smooth move.

How to free motion quilt heart loops

[Related: 9 ways to free motion quilt hearts]

make sure you pin this to try them later!

Custom free motion quilting on quilt-as-you-go blocks

For the other quilt, each block is going to be custom quilted, which means each will be designed accordingly with the block pattern.

The benefit of using quilt-as-you-go block is that it is so much easy to maneuver with small blocks and custom quilting is made easier under the throat of a Domestic machine. Plus, your shoulder should thank you too!

I planned the custom quilting using Sharon Holland’s colouring page which Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell have available for download in the Intro section. I simply view them in magnified mode on my screen and crop each block into JPG on its own (You can use (shift+command+4 on Mac) or use snips in Microsoft.

Then, I printed the block individually and plan out the quilting with pencils. While doing it with the pencil I also plan how will I be moving the needle from one place to another.

Custom Free Motion Quilting

I had fun with this block, playing around with lots of feathers and dot-to-dot quilting.

In the half square triangle, I used the dot-to-dot quilting to create a beautiful lotus shape flower pattern. I love how simple it is to do such quilting yet turns out so complicated.

if you are looking to add to the library, this book and this book are great books to have as a reference for various shapes.

Quilting with Rulers

I rarely used a quilting ruler, but I have been wanting to try more ruler work and need more practice, so I thought this was a good time to practice it.

In this particular block, I didn’t try any fancy ruler work, I just used it to work my way stitching in the ditch. Usually I just free motion my stitch-in-the-ditch, but it was nice to know I can actually use the ruler with the large clear foot too.

I previously used this ruler with the hopping foot, but I really don’t like it as it sometimes hopped onto the ruler. Very dangerous.

Since my machine comes with the non-hopping foot, I used those with the rulers. You can even use a ruler foot – which is much safer for quilting with the rulers and more precise too. I have this one, but didn’t use for this project cause I couldn’t be bothered to switch the foot.

Ruler Foot

You can get a ruler foot HERE. Choose the one that suits your machine in terms of its shank size. Read more about the basic of free motion quilting foot here.

FMQ Rulers

You can get the rulers I use from HERE. I kind of like the handles to grip it with.

However, Angela has designed a new set of rulers. Check that out here. I love creative Grid’s Ruler, so I think this is of good quality too.

Feather quilting

If you have been following the updates on this version of my Sewcial Bee Sampler, you’ll notice the feather motif quilting theme that I try to implement in each block.

For this block, I added feather details in the middle of the block, fanning along the pinwheel shape extending to the little square at each pinwheel corner.

I love the versatility of feathers!

I also continued with the feather border theme with this one having small little feathers within the small frame. I played with the alternating size of feather plume to vary the look.

If you want to try free motion quilt feather motifs yourself, I have a free course that you can sign up right here to get started.

Well, if you decide to join along or have any questions, drop me a comment. I will be happy to help where I can! In the meantime, you can also check these free motion quilting tips!