Machine Quilting Design #30 – Trailing Tears
Today’s machine quilting design was really created by accident. I was working on the Challenge piece and started to do Flowing Glass, but the lines weren’t close enough and the texture looked unbalanced in comparison to the other designs around it. So I simply doubled the design and ended up machine quilting Trailing Tears!
I’m a little terrified of having the larger pictures online because you will all see that not all of my stitches are perfect. The fact is, quilting is very rarely perfectly perfect unless you’re willing to seam rip yourself to death!
I focus less on perfection and more on consistency. If your lines remain consistent distances apart, your eye won’t catch the small “weird” areas where you may not have filled the design perfectly.
Learn more about machine quilting Trailing Tears:
This is one of those excellent designs that flow from shape to shape very easily with only a small amount of traveling.
Inspiration – Flowing glass is a really nice fill, but sometimes you will want a closer texture and the slightly different effect of Trailing Tears
Difficulty Level – Beginner. This is a very easy shape to master and because of it’s free form nature it can be very forgiving.
Design Family – Edge to Center.
Directional Texture – 2 directions. This fill flows from one side of your quilting space to another so it works great as a horizontal or vertical filler.
Suggestions for Use – As proved in the challenge piece, Trailing Tears would look terrific placed horizontally in 2.5″ sashing. This would not only fill up the spaces between your blocks, it would add much needed texture to an area that is usually left blank.
Let’s go quilt,
Leah Day
I can see where this machine quilting design would work nicely on a landscape quilt. Thanks!
Oh, my, please don't worry about any of your imperfections in larger photos. They are only noticeable to you…Thank you for sharing all these great ideas.
Thanks Anya! I agree – often our flaws are only glaringly obvious to ourselves.
Don't worry, beginners won't see any flaws, and even if more experienced quilters did, they know how hard free motion quilting is. I think your stitching is just fine. Thank you for doing it and for providing all these nice designs. Keep up the good work!
Beatrice in Germany
When I can do better, I will critique your "weird" areas. By that time, you will be 100 years old and I will be too old to care! Your trailing tears are lovely!
Absolutely LOVE this one. Up until now, my favourite has been the flowing glass, and I found it the easiest for me to do. I'll try this one later and see how it goes. I love the final product!
I have never seen anything in the quilt world as beautiful as this! I will forever be grateful to you for sharing your talent with all of us. Absolutely the most awesome thing I have seen. Thank you for who you are and what you do. And God bless you on this year long mission.