Day 280 – Rattlesnake

Wow! I’ve gotten a HUGE response to the Sewing Machine Survey. In less than 2 days, we’ve already had over 100 machines shared. To answer a great question posted in the comments – please share ALL of the machines you own, each in its own survey. So if you own five machines, submit the survey five times.

free motion quilting design rattlesnake

Okay, let’s get cracking with a new design for today. This is a variation of Tangled Snakes that’s a little easier to stitch and kind of looks like a Rattlesnake:

Difficulty Level – Advanced. This design is much easier than Tangled Snakes, mostly because you can wiggle in the Lacy Lattice much faster than circles and it seems to flow much easier.

Design Family – Branching. After nearly going blind stitching this on such a small scale, I really think it would look much better, and stitch easier on a larger scale.

Directional Texture – All Directions. You can’t beat this wiggly, flowing texture! If you don’t like the idea of Rattlesnakes going on your quilt, you could think of them as ribbons or streamers.

Suggestions for Use – Like I said before, stitching this design on a small scale wasn’t much fun. It’s possible, but it’s not easy. Instead use this design as a flowing texture all over your quilt. I think it would be super funky to stitch over the surface of a baby quilt. Who says baby quilts have all got to be pink hearts and blue ducks?

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.

4 Responses

  1. susiloci says:

    Que preciosidad ese acolchado de serpientes. Es maravilloso.

  2. flavia says:

    ciao Leah! sono Flavia dall'Italia.ti seguo ormai da tanti anni…e mi appassioni sempre!
    avevo lasciato un commento su come trapuntare, disegni complicati di quelli che fai tu in piccoli quadrati, quilt di grandi dimensioni con una semplice macchina da cucire. io trovo moltissima difficoltà a girare quilt di grosso peso e dimensione.
    hai un video su questo???
    grazie!!!

  3. Leah Day says:

    Flavia posted: Hello Leah! Flavia are from Italy. I will follow you for many years now … and I always passionate!
    I left a comment on how quilting, intricate designs of what you do in small squares, large quilt with a simple sewing machine. I find it difficult to turn a lot of heavy weight and size quilt.
    you have a video on this??
    thanks!

  4. Leah Day says:

    Hi Flavia – In my opinion your sewing machine setup is the key to quilting large quilts in free motion. First concentrate on getting your machine on a flush surface with the tabletop. This helps to reduce the drag on the surface of the quilt top.

    Next, when loading your quilt into the machine, don't roll it up into a log. Instead just squish it under the arm and start in the center and try to knock out the center section all in one go. That's really the hardest part.

    I hope this helps!

    Leah

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