Free Motion Quilting Design #20 – Tree Bark
I have a gorgeous, organic free motion quilting design to share with you today! Now that I know how to quilt Tree Bark, all I want to do is quilt trees!
I think this design makes me more mellow. Seriously, even describing how to quilt it made my voice go very chill and relaxed. It’s not always easy finding quiet time to record the videos with a 2 year old in the house, but today I managed it!
Learn more about free motion quilting Tree Bark:
Inspiration: I quilt in a ugly, low ceiling, basement room that is paneled with hideous fake wood paneling. As much as I hate that paneling and keep swearing that I will one day take time off of quilting to paint it, it still managed to inspire a beautiful quilting design all on its own.
Lesson learned: even ugly things you absolutely hate with a passion can still inspire beautiful things.
Difficulty Level – Intermediate. With this filler you don’t need to be consistent, keep your lines even, or play by any “rules.” This makes this design much easier to create for those people who work best in free form.
For those of you who struggle and fight freedom, this design may be more difficult because you will be continually trying to place rules where no rules belong.
Design Family – Edge to Edge.
Directional Texture: 2 directions. This design looks great placed horizontally or vertically on a quilt.
Suggestions for Use: Of course, free motion quilting Tree bark is lots of fun, but this texture isn’t going to fit in very many places. The “knots” of the wood really remind me of eyes and I think this general design method could be used to easily create rough, line drawn quilted portraits.
This free motion design also reminds me of water swirling around rocks or pebbles in a stream.
Let’s go quilt,
Leah Day
Very nice,Leah. I have been thinking of doing some tree patterns and this will be perfect. BTW, I have removed paneling like you have very easily. Just pull it off the wall!
Hi Mainer,
I know! I've ripped a ton of the stuff out of the house already, but it will require taking a break from quilting, and that's something I'm not willing to do.
One of these days I'll paint the walls and create a real picturesque quilting space, but for now it does the job. My dream is to one day quilt in a open studio room full of windows!
Enjoy the blog and please send in a photo of your quilt when it's finished. I can't wait to see it!
Leah
Dear Leah,
I am doing your quilt a sampler course over on Craftsy, but I am so excited by the quilting I havent even started on the BOM blocks, instead I am quilting anything and everything and trying loads of your designs from the 365 project. I really must calm down and do those blocks! Thank you so much for being such a great teacher, and for this amazing resource!