How to Quilt Matrix Star, Design # 500
HAPPY DAY 500! I can’t believe I have finally shared the 500th design. I decided to pull out one of my oldie goldie favorites, Superstar, and change it up a bit to create a new design called Matrix Star. Learn how to quilt this new free motion quilting design in this quilting tutorial:
I’ve updated the Quilting Design Gallery to include all 500 designs. Click here to check it out.
I’ve added links to all of the Free Motion quilting, walking foot quilting and longarm quilting tutorials I’ve shared over the last nine years. I’ve also added all the videos we’ve shared in our yearly Quilt Alongs too!
I had to do a full count and that’s over 700 quilting tutorials! It’s been a blast creating this resource for quilters and I would love it if you shared it with your friends.
Now let’s learn more about Matrix Star:
Design Family – Center Fill. This design starts in the center of your quilt with a wiggly star shape. I took some time to tie off and very my thread tails so they’d be out of my way while I stitched this design.
Click here to find the cheater needle I use to quickly tie off and secure my thread in the middle layer of my quilt. I do this for every single thread break and as you can see in the video, it doesn’t take that much time to secure the tails properly, even with gloves on.
Once I got the thread tails out of the way, it was easy to quilt the beautiful star over the small quilt sandwich. From there it’s just a process of echoing to expand the design until it fills the entire quilt square completely.
Difficulty Level – Super Beginner. I think this is one of the easiest designs I’ve shared in awhile. If you can stitch a simple line based star, and make it wiggly, then Matrix Star will be right up your alley.
Even if you’re just learning how to do echoing, this design is perfect to experiment with. All the overlapping lines means even if you’re echo quilting isn’t perfect, it will still look great on your quilt.
Suggestions for Use – I think Matrix Star will work great on any style of quilt, especially using All-Over Style quilting. This style of quilting ignores the piecing design completely and allows you to quickly cover the quilt surface with texture. I use this style of quilting to cover the Jelly Town Baby Quilt with a huge Super Spiral design. Matrix Star will work the same way and cover the quilt quickly with beautiful wiggly lines.
So now you have 500 designs to play with, which one are you going to stitch next? Click here to check out the quilting design gallery and browse through the collection of designs and video tutorials I’ve shared over the last nine years.
Let’s go quilt,
Leah Day
Congratulations Leah on design #500!
Congratulations on reaching this milestone!!!
Congratulations on this momentous milestone! Dare I say…"Here's to 500 more" I will take my FIRST formal FMQ class in January at Road to California. YOU have been my virtual instructor for the last 3 years- without you, I would have a truckload of unfinished quilts. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!:)