Paisley Style Machine Quilting Design – Flaming Paisley

I think we have a new Paisley style machine quilting design! This Flaming Paisley and I basically took the inspiration from Snake Paisley. This was created with one single wiggly flame shape. Now let’s see what happens when you take that single flame shape and expand it to 3 flames:

Machine Quilting Tutorial Flaming Paisley

Today I’ve pulled the drill back out again and I’m installing shelving and cabinet organizers in the studio. I’m hoping this will make my cabinets much easier to use and functional for storage. There’s a lot of wasted space that could be used to hold fabric, tools, and other supplies.

So far I’m really liking the new setup both upstairs and downstairs and I’ve really gotten back to quilting and designing the last few mornings. I even ran out of cut squares for filler designs and have to cut new ones, and I haven’t had to do that since last December!

Once the cleanup is finally finished I’m planning on shooting a quick studio walk through for ya’ll to see the full setup. While I don’t have the most glamorous space in the world, it’s functional and that’s what counts!

Now let’s get back machine quilting Flame Paisley:

Inspiration – I love flame shapes and flame inspired designs. They are organic, free form, and create lots of eye-catch movement on the surface of a quilt.

Difficulty Level – Intermediate. This design really isn’t that difficult, but it can be tricky to squish into really small areas. However, on a larger scale this would be a very easy design to quilt over the whole surface of your quilt, so definitely give it a try!

Design Family – Pivoting. Pivoting designs are all variations of Paisley and are created by first stitching a shape (in this case a series of three wiggly flames connected together), then you return to your starting point, pivot, and echo that shape several times.

Directional Texture – All Directions. The wiggly, free form flames really stand out beautifully on the surface of a quilt.

Suggestions for Use – I like the idea of contrasting textures with my quilts and this seems like a perfect design to play with! Next time you have a really angular quilt with many pieced shapes and angles, try quilting it with All Over Quilting with a curving, flowing design like Flaming Paisley.

This contrast in texture can be really interesting! Likewise if you have a very curving, flowing applique design, try breaking it up a bit with a sharp angled free motion design Left Turn, Right Turn.

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day

LeahDay

Leah Day has been teaching online since 2009. She's the creator of the Free Motion Quilting Project, a blog filled with thousands of quilting tutorial videos. Leah has written several books including 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day, and Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt.

2 Responses

  1. Leah, I've been practicing some of your designs and thought you might like a look. Thanks for all your ideas!

    http://501quiltblocks.blogspot.com/2010/10/free-motion-quilting-sampler.html

    Hope this link works.

  2. Teresa says:

    I love the flaming paisley. I'm sure this is one that I'll use often.
    I can't wait to see your studio!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *