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I am sharing with you today how I quilted block 14 – Star and Cross.

(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!

Some links provided here are affiliate links for your convenience. Please find my full disclosure here.

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.

Before we go into the design for this block, here are some of my favorite must-have tools for Free Motion Quilting:

1. Superior Threads. I literally changed my minds about threads, when I started using this thread. Just read what other people has to say about it too HERE. And they come in big cones. which means they last longer before I have to change thread. I use an embroidery thread stand for it. You can get cheap thread stand like this one here.

2. Superior Threads Top Stitch Needles. I use this for all my sewing and FMQ. Really. In fact, I kind of find it a bit off when I have to use a needle that is not colored gold as these needles are. Try out different sizes with this pack.

3. My trusty sticky Glove. Any brand works for me, but I personally love the one that is breathable cotton like this one. If I don’t feel like wearing gloves, I make sure I have my Supreme Slider on the machine. Works like a charm and reduce tiring my shoulder.

4. Spray Baste. I am not a fan of taking off safety pins. This makes it so much quicker and allows me to cruise without fear of getting onto a pin. I personally love 505 Spray baste.

5. My large throat Janome Horizon machine of course!

Allover Quilting Motif: Swirl Curls

For the allover quilting, I chose another type of spiral motif, which I’d like to call it as swirl curls.

I find that it is very textural and give a slightly different result to the basic spiral I had shown HERE with the earlier block.

This motif gives a pop to to the center of the spirals due to the denser curl echoes around it.

This is a fun thing about testing out different motif on small blocks, you get to see how it looks like on a quilt sandwich.

How to free motion quilt heart loops

[Related: How to Quilt Spirals]

First start with a hook and then echo back the hook.
Start echoing the shape of the hook and make a sharp point before returning back in an echo (curls). These curls can be echoed all the way around the hook or can be just halfway or even smaller to cover a certain areas. They do not have to echo all the way around.
Make the second hook and repeat, changing direction of the hook and the echoes to keep it random.

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 kept this block very simple with lots of orange peel quilting. This was very easy to do with the square patchwork since I can just eyeball where to go from one point to another.

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 have incorporated a bit of feathers coming out the centre corners of the cross. I got one of them in the wrong direction but, it wasn’t too obvious right? LOL

The border of this block is very slim and I decided to skip the feather theme here and went with a scallops instead.

Well, that is all for this block, I have 7 more to go and then I’ll be wrapping this quilt making by joining them together.

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!