Practice Machine Quilting Pebbling

This month is all about Pebbling! This free form, circular stacking design is one of my favorite machine quilting designs because it’s so versatile. You can quilt it around nearly any shape, the circles can expand to take up lots of space, or shrink down to the size of sand within tiny areas.

We’re using this beautiful design in our Spinning Sun block for the Machine Quilting Block Party and I’ve included a practice worksheet for you to trace onto fabric and practice machine quilting. Click Here to find this worksheet in the pattern for Block #4.

The one challenge with Pebbling is stacking the shapes together, which can require travel stitching over one spots multiple times. I actually struggled to quilt this design for years because I was quilting with cotton thread that couldn’t take the travel stitching.

Every time I swung around to travel stitch around a Pebble my thread would break and I’d have to stop, rethread, and start again. And then my thread would break again!

Obviously it was impossible to master this design with constant thread breaks. It wasn’t until I started trying new threads and found Isacord thread that I realized I COULD quilt Pebbling, so long as the thread I was using was thin and strong enough to travel stitch multiple times over the same area.

Definitely keep this story in mind as you try machine quilting Pebbling and if you find your thread breaking, try switching threads until you find one that works better for you!

Have you tried quilting Pebbling before? What was the biggest struggle with this design for you? Share your experience in the comments below!

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day