Day 305 – Line Fern
Let’s go back to basics with a simple variation of Fern & Stem, one of the earliest designs from the project. This Line Fern simply incorporates more lines of quilting which make the design appear even more flowing and organic:
This design was sponsored by the Machine Quilting Kit, a collection of the three best tools for free motion quilting on a home sewing machine. Click here to learn more about this kit!
Difficulty Level – Intermediate. If you were covering a very large section of quilt, it might be tricky to stitch the stem all in one go, but as long as you keep your stitches consistent and an even distance apart, this filler will always look terrific!
Design Family – Stem Centered. This design is created by first stitching your stem, then stitching the “leaves” off of it to fill in your quilting space completely. The leaves are then filled with and internal echo to enhance the design and make the wiggle fern like texture stand out even better.
Suggestions for Use – Line Fern would be a great choice for a quick and simple fill for the sashing or borders of your next quilt. The wiggly stem can flow throughout these spaces and then all you have to do is travel stitch along it to fill with the line leaves.
Leah, if you're using this in border, would you meander the center line from side to side or just go straight down? Do you know what I mean?
Hi Helen – Great question! It really is entirely up to you.
You could take the stem all around the border with no beginning or end so it forms a ring around the quilt, then travel stitch along the sides to branch out with the leaves.
Or you could stitch it across and down, leaving the ends of the stem to do something funky in the corners.
Or you could interweave the stem throughout the quilt sashing to form a woven texture, then fill the rest of the space with the leaves.
As you can see, there's really a lot of options here! I'm a bit fired up thinking about the possibilities so I may blog about this again soon!
Cheers,
Leah