How Do You Quilt the Background?
Do you know the trickiest area to quilt in a quilt? No, it’s not inside appliques, or within triangle points. The hardest place to pick a good quilting design is the background.
A few things make this area challenging – it’s usually a very large area, and sometimes you have a lot of open space. Other times you will have tiny, complex areas created by the piecing that is tricky to quilt through seamlessly.
This week I shared a video on how I plan my background quilting design and add extra details to make it more interesting. Click Here to find this tutorial.
I quilted the entire background of the Leaf Peepers Quilt with only three designs: straight lines, curving lines, and Sharp Stippling. By using the lines created with rulers, I was able to break down the background space. This also made that open area more interesting and dynamic.
I love the flow of Sharp Stippling and Yes, I could just as easily have quilted only Sharp Stippling through the entire background.
But then I would have been very, very bored by the end of it!
Sometimes I break up the background of a quilt just to give myself different designs to play with. I could have quilted each open space between the lines with a different design. That would have made this quilt even more interesting and fun!
Do you have a quilt you’re struggling to pick the designs for? Spend some time looking at the quilt top and think about ways you can add extra designs, shapes, and motifs to the background. I often find once I see those extra elements, the entire quilt starts to come together like magic!
Don’t forget to check out Sheri’s post from the Leaf Peepers Quilt Along this week on quilting the 4th block with walking foot quilting. Click Here to find her quilting tutorial.
Let’s go quilt,
Leah Day
