Day 146 – Slanted Paisley

Today I looked back at Ying Yang and really felt this design needed a slight variation. I played around with curving the design up and thought it looked like a Slanted Paisley:

I’ve been playing hooky! Saturday I was off to South Carolina to teach my very first workshop to Nimble Thimbles. They’re such an awesome guild, I really wish I lived closer so I could join!

Today I’ve been busy creating new free motion designs, shooting some videos, and trying to put everything back in order. I’ve also started a new quilt design for a quilt I’m calling Shadow Self which I share a bit later when it’s further along.

So before I run off to start another new project, let’s learn how to quilt Slanted Paisley:

Inspiration – I’ve been looking at several sign and symbol books and both Ying Yangs and the 69 symbol have always popped out at me begging for more attention.

I really think this worked pretty well in free motion and plan to try using it as a stencil design in the future.

Difficulty Level – Intermediate. I found this design pretty easy, but it’s important to keep the shape in your head that you’re stitching. It was easy to form really lopsided shapes if I wasn’t thinking about the Ying Yang while I quilted it.

Design Family – Edge to Edge. This design is quilted from one edge to another which makes it a great design for the open, uncomplicated areas of your quilt.

Directional Texture – All directions. Typically edge to edge designs will have a horizontal or vertical texture, but this design is so slanted and wiggly, I really feel like it has more of an all-over texture instead.

Suggestions for Use – I think this would make for a terrific sashing design! Expand it to fill your sashing area for a really interesting, easy to stitch design.