Day 300 – Edge of Reality

Whoo Hoo! We’ve finally hit 300 Designs! It’s hard to believe we’re in the home stretch of the original goal of 365 designs.

All I know is, the more designs we have, the more connections and ideas I come up with. Yes, the designs will be getting more complex from here on out, as you can tell from this design called Edge of Reality:

Maybe this is pushing me to the edge of MY reality! This is a combination of Matrix and simple echo quilting found in Desert Sand. Put the two designs together and you get an amazing combination of thread texture and drama.

Difficulty Level – Advanced. This is a pretty hard core design, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. This is actually a combination of two beginner level designs so you can practice the easier versions first, then put them together to see what happens!

First try stitching Desert Sand which is a simple Foundational Design that involves echo quilting simple curving shapes. Then try Matrix, a wiggly grid design. Finally put the two together and you hopefully you won’t be driven to the real edge of reality.

Design Family – Foundational. This design starts with the wiggly center line that bisects the design. Whatever you set up with this first line of quilting, that is what is going to really show up the most in the design so make sure it looks good!

Directional Texture – No Direction. It’s hard to say what directional texture this will really take on in a real quilt. The more wiggly and wobbly your foundational line, the more crazy the texture will be.

Suggestions for Use – I’ve experimented a bit with foundational designs in borders and found them to not only look gorgeous, they’re actually really easy to quilt in these areas! I’m definitely planning to try Edge of Reality in the border of my next quilt, and maybe even use one color of thread for the Matrix side and another color for the echoing side.

Let’s go Quilt!

Leah Day

LeahDay

Leah Day has been teaching online since 2009. She's the creator of the Free Motion Quilting Project, a blog filled with thousands of quilting tutorial videos. Leah has written several books including 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs, Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day, and Mally the Maker and the Queen in the Quilt.

5 Responses

  1. M-R says:

    Wow, that's a great design, Leah! Congrats on getting to 300! And congrats on Winter Wonderland! Your work is amazing and so helpful so keep it coming. 🙂

  2. NickersMarie says:

    Leah, I love this one! In a border, would you have the wiggly separator line running down the the length border?

    I am getting to quilt a Japanese fabric drop shadow quilt and this might be perfect for my sashings.

    Thanks,
    Nicky

  3. Leah Day says:

    Hey Nicky – Yep, I'd run that foundation line down the border, bisecting it so one half could be filled with echo quilting and the other half with matrix.

    It's definitely something that could work on a large scale too! I'm looking forward to trying it on a bed quilt I need to finish for a holiday gift.

    Can't wait to see what you do with it!

    Leah

  4. Nina Paley says:

    That is a great design! As is Tree Root Pockets. Very dramatic.

  5. June D says:

    I have been just watching the beginner designs – but popped in to see this advanced video. Wow! It's really nice the way you show how to complete the entire square. I'm looking forward to trying these more advanced patterns. Thank you for all your time and care Leah. Not only can you do free motion design, but you are an excellent teacher too.

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