Day 350 – Tornadoes

Here we are in the home stretch! Just 15 designs to go to reach 365 and I have to say this design is going to be one of my favorites. It’s a neat variation of Pointy Paisley with a darker, thread painted center to create Tornadoes:

With only 15 designs to go to the original goal, I have to look back and consider what I was doing on Day 15 of the project. Those beginning designs really were the hardest to create because I had no idea what I was doing. I was just drawing and stitching and making my best guess as to how the design would work in a real quilt.

Nowadays there’s less guess work, but it’s still just as simple as drawing and stitching and playing to come up with a new design!

Difficulty Level – Advanced. This funky design is a bit advanced because of the initial thread play to create the triangles. Just watch how much thread you build up in these sections because if the area builds up too much, your thread will break as you try to stitch out of it.

Design Family – Pivoting. First check out Pointy Paisley and get the hang of that design, then give Tornadoes a try. The only difference between the two designs is Tornadoes starts with a thread painted triangle, so practicing the simpler version first will be a great way to build up to this more advanced design.

Directional Texture – All Directions. Because the triangles are darker and more eye catching, these areas are going to stand out boldly on the surface of your quilt. Just like with Pug Eyes and Square Shell, maybe we should call this texture Polka Dotted!

Suggestions for Use – This graphic, edgy design makes me think about the guys in my life and how little they enjoy flower designs over their quilts. I definitely think Tornadoes would be the perfect fit for a teenage guy who’s needing a touch of funky texture to finish off his quilt.

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.

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