Psychedelic Checkerboard Trippy Quilting Design!

A LONG time ago I posted a grid based design called Checkerboard. Now it’s time to loosen up those straight lines as we turn this simple design into Psychedelic Checkerboard!

Psychedelic Checkerboard quilting design

Looking back I know the hardest time of this project was the very beginning. With so few designs created, inspiration and variation was hard to come by. But now with 263 designs on the project, coming up with a new design is as easy as looking back at what has been created before.

Of course, the trickiest part of this design will be traveling inside the wiggly grid to stitch the wiggly lines. Just remember, this is definitely possible if you slow down and take your time stitching right on the line.

Let’s watch out to quilt this design in free motion:

Difficulty LevelIntermediate. This design can be tricky, but the best thing to do is just start with a large wiggly grid (essentially Matrix) and travel stitch inside this grid to create the wiggly horizontal or vertical lines to make your Psychedelic Checkerboard.

If you find you can’t see what you’re doing and traveling is a lesson in frustration, try breaking open your free motion foot for better visibility.

Design Family – Edge to Edge. The base of this design is stitched from one edge to another on your quilt, so I’d try to place it in simple, open areas of your quilts, like open blocks, sashing, or borders.

Directional Texture – 2 Directions. This has a pretty funky texture doesn’t it?! With all those wiggly lines in such a grid-like arrangement, this design isn’t going to be a big showoff, unless of course, you stitch in in contrasting thread!

Suggestions for Use – Here’s a cool project idea – take a 20″ square of fabric and mark a 16″ square in the center. Stitch a Psychedelic Checkerboard over the surface, making sure you have an 8 x 8 grid. Finish the edges and you have one awesome chess or checkerboard to play with!

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.

2 Responses

  1. Kay Lynne says:

    I think that would be a really neat texture on a kids quilt. Thanks for sharing.

  2. This is one of my faves of your posts so far!
    Thanks for sharing!
    Shannon
    http://www.fabricsnquilts.com

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