How to Machine Quilt Popcorn, Design #492

I promised more quilting designs and I’m ready to deliver! I have an awesome new design for you today called Popcorn. This funky echoing design looks pretty complex, but I promise it’s easy to quilt if you memorize all the rules of the design.

Learn how to free motion quilt Popcorn in this new quilting tutorial:

Quick links to tools and supplies used in this quilting tutorial:

Eversewn Sparrow 20 Sewing Machine – I’m really enjoying this little machine! It really has a wonderful stitch quality and the most basic features I need in a machine. I do miss having a knee lifter and a little bird told me there’s a new Eversewn machine coming out with this feature… it might be enough for me to switch!

Low Shank Darning Foot – In order to free motion quilt, you need a foot that’s designed to hover over your quilt. Make sure to watch the tutorial here to learn how to break your foot so it works better for machine quilting.

Isacord Polyester Thread – This is my favorite thread for machine quilting. Yep, it’s embroidery thread. Yep, it’s polyester! It’s also super strong, very thin, and virtually lint free. As far as I’m concerned, that’s win, win, win!

I have a new way for you to enjoy quilting designs and be inspired as you stitch! Check out the 365 Quilting Designs Perpetual Calendar. Every day you can see a new quilting design and challenge yourself to quilt a small square every day. I promise of you make this a habit, you will see amazing improvement in your skills in a short space of time.

Now let’s learn more about this new Popcorn quilting design.

Design Family – Echoing. Popcorn is quilted by first stitching a flower shape on the end of a wiggly line. To expand the design cover more space on your quilt simply travel stitch and echo around the design. Echoing designs cover your quilts in large clusters. Simply travel stitch and branch out with a new wiggly line and flower shape to continue the design.

Difficulty Level – Beginner. This design does have a lots of different steps: stitch it wiggly line, stitch a flower, echo back to your starting line, and travel and echo quilt around the shape several times. Even though it has lots of steps, popcorn is an easy design to memorize and quilt anywhere on your quilts.

Popcorn is a great skill builder for echo quilting and the best part is even if you stitching isn’t perfect, you can get away with the lines being closer together or further apart. The complexity of this quilting design hides many mistakes, so if echoing is a skill you been needing to build definitely give Popcorn a try.

Suggestions for Use – I think Popcorn will work great in any area of your quilt, except tight, tiny areas around motifs where the design doesn’t have space to expand. Every cluster of Popcorn can take up a lot of space so it will work best when you have a nice open area to quilt it in.

It will also look great on a larger scale! I experimented by drawing popcorn around a rectangle to see how the design would look in the border of a quilt. I think this would look great stitched on a large scale with Straight Lines or Pinstripes filling in the rest of the border.

Do you have any questions about quilting Popcorn? Please ask in the comments below!

I love it when you share my quilting videos and photos online with your friends. Please feel free to pin this post to Pinterest, share on Facebook, and Instagram. That really helps me out a lot!

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day