How to Machine Quilt Cotton Candy, Design #481

A few weeks ago I started playing around with a simple Clouds quilting design and then I couldn’t seem to stop playing with the design! It’s fun to quilt the fluffy shapes and add a light, pretty design to our quilts. Here’s a simple variation I’m calling Cotton Candy:

Cotton Candy is a very simple design and a great way to practice quilting Clouds. You begin with the simple clouds shape, then travel stitch and echo quilt around it multiple times to add a ripply texture to your quilts.

Confused by all that quilty jargon? Watch how to quilt this design in this new machine quilting video:

Would you like to take a quilting class with me? I’ve created several online quilting workshops just for you! Create the quilts, watch the videos, and learn how to quilt bigger quilts, master walking foot quilting, and even make a wholecloth quilt like the one above. Click Here to find a workshop.

Now let’s learn more about quilting Cotton Candy:

Difficulty Level – Beginner. Cotton Candy isn’t a hard quilting design to master because the steps are simple enough to memorize. Think of this like memorizing how to sign your name in cursive. It took a little time, but now you sign your name without even thinking about the letters and how they connect together to form the shapes.

Quilting a design like Cotton Candy is the same. It may help to mark the design on your quilt to begin, then quilt on the lines. That way you can see the lines and know where to stitch, then pretty soon you won’t need the lines to guide you.

Design Family – Echoing – This family of designs begins with a simple shape (circle, triangle, fluffy cloud). You then travel stitch and echo around the shape to expand the design. Some similar designs include Echo Shell, Brain Coral, and Trippy Triangles. 

Try quilting these designs as well and then quilt Cotton Candy. Which is your favorite Echoing Design?

Where do we quilt it? – This is one sweet design and I think it will work just about anywhere in your quilts. You can expand the cloud shapes and echoes to quilt the design on a big scale for bed quilts. You can also shrink Cotton Candy down to quilt densely on wall hangings too.

Where do you think this design will work best? Give it a try and share a picture of your quilt on the Leah Day Quilting Friends Facebook Group. 

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day