Free Motion Quilting Design #338 – Fiddlehead Fern
It’s getting cooler these days so if you go for a walk in the woods, you might just find a real life example of a Fiddlehead Fern all curled up like this spiral design:
This Stem-Centered Design is a great practice exercise for quilting feathers and spirals at the same time! Don’t hesitate to alternate the angle and size of your spirals. I kept mine really formal and stacked next to one another, but I think this would look really pretty quilted with the leaves flowing in all directions too. Check out the video and see how I stitched it:
Difficulty Level – Intermediate. Fiddlehead Fern has lots of skill-building techniques – travel stitching, echoing, quilting spirals, and estimating space between shapes. Definitely give it a try and start building these skills today!
Design Family – Stem Centered. Once you set the foundation by quilting the stem over your quilts, all you need to do is fill in the remaining space with your spiral leaves. If you’re looking for a simpler design to begin quilting try Fern & Stem first.
Directional Texture – All Directions. I quilted my little quilt square very formal with all the spirals stacked nicely together. If quilted this more free form you’ll see the flowing multi-directional texture. Very pretty indeed!
Where will Fiddlehead Fern work best in our quilts? This design stands out a lot on the quilt so I think it will work best as an All-Over Quilting design. If you expand the spiral leaves, they will likely cover a lot of quilting space with each shape and finish your quilts fast!
Let’s go quilt,
Leah Day
this is gorgeous! i love the white on red, too.
This is a really lovely design!
This is amazing.
Hi! Greetings from Finland! Thank you so much for your lovely and interesting blog! It's nice to find other quilters all around the world! 🙂
yay! now I know what I'm doing on the border of the quilt I'm quilting! Thanks you!
Thank you so much. I love your designs and am very thankful for all these ideas. I too have been frustrated with the lack of design for free motion quilting. Thanks so much.