Day 193 – Giant Dahlia
After a wonderful weekend we’re back with More Fillers Monday!
I’m feeling the need for a new floral design so let’s learn how to stitch Giant Dahlia:
It’s been a very good weekend! On Sunday I finished all of the filming for the beginner filler DVD. Whoo hoo!Now the editing process is on and Josh is taking over today while I head back upstairs to spend some time with Shadow Self. She’s been neglected as of late and I’m starting to feel the intense desire to get her DONE!
It’s always funny when I get into production mode with a quilt. I start to hate the quilt because it’s taking so long and hate myself because I designed the darn thing, but as soon as it’s done I completely forget how awful I felt. Don’t ya just love selective memory?!
Inspiration – I was eating some Hershey’s kisses the other day and realized that the kiss shape would make a really interesting looking leaf. It’s a bit tricky to maintain, however, so try drawing it a few times to get the hang of it.
Be careful not to confuse Giant Dahlia with Delilah. They might both be based off the same flower, but they’re both stitched in very different ways!
Difficulty Level – Intermediate. There’s a good big of traveling in this design, so take your time and your Dahlia flower will finish beautifully.
Design Family – Center Fill. This is worked from the center to the outside, so make sure to place this design in an open block where the flower has room to bloom!
Directional Texture – Center Focused. This type of design works like a bulls eye for your eyes! Definitely use it in places you really want to show off.
Suggestions for Use – Since it’s so close to day 200, I’ve started going back through the designs and realizing just how many we have to choose from.
I noticed today that we’ve had quite a lot of center focused flower designs on the project. I think it’s enough to create a very cute quilt with!
Try quilting a separate block of each of these designs, then put them together in a beautiful flower quilt: Giant Dahlia, Delilah, Flame Flower, Poinsettia, Sea Anemone, Feather Flower, Super Daisy, Flower Ball, and Graphic Flower. And that’s not even all of them!
Feel free to use this free motion filler designs in your quilts,Click here to support the project by visiting our online quilt shop.
I want to thank you for giving me the courage to expand my free motion quilting on the longarm. Today I used scrap whole cloth and tried several filler designs including some I am making up as I go along. I now feel confident enough to use these on customer quilts. I would send you a photo, but I was having such a good time, when I ran out of room on whole cloth I just went over some of the designs with a new design, so Im the only one that can really see what I was doing. Thanks again, and keep up the free motion designs
Hi Leah. I just wanted to tell you that I have applied one of you suggestions to my planning. Maybe it wasn't a new concept before but I heard it first from you and that was when you suggested to plan out the quilting process before piecing. I have planned out two art quilts this way (haven't attempted them yet) and I have found that even this process is gratifying in a creative way for me. I can't wait to see what they will look like but I wanted to thank you for the idea. Between you and The silly boodilly, my synaptic receptors go crazy with new ideas in artistic expression.
Thank you so much again. Tina.
This one is lovely!!!