35. Learn how to Quilt Permed Fern, Design #392

Are you ready to learn another new design? I’ve been looking back at some old favorites: Swirling Feathers and Tongue of Flames and decided to try a funky variation called Permed Fern:
free motion quilting | Leah Day

When I was a kid I thought getting my hair permed was the height of cool. That is until a short hair cut and frizzy perm combined to make me look like Ronald McDonald for a solid year. Let’s keep the curly-q shape out of my hair and just in a quilt!

Difficulty Level – Advanced.

Design Family – Stem Centered

I have to say this design just makes me smile. I’m not really sure why, But I really like it! This design does involve a fair amount of traveling so it’s always going to show up fairly bold on the surface of your quilt.

It’s also always going to be slightly more time consuming to do all that careful stitching so just take your time. At the end of the movie Wreck It Ralph, Ralph decides to take life “One game at a time.” so with this design just remember to take it one stitch at a time!

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.

9 Responses

  1. Glinda ♥ says:

    This really is clever, Leah and you make it look soooooo easy! I'm going to give this one a go 🙂

  2. I absolutely LOVE this design. It reminds me a bit of Cucumber Vine. The first thing I thought when I watched you stitch this was — an "embroidery" stitched on denim. I will try this on my sample/practice sandwich ASAP.

  3. Elaine Judge says:

    One of my favourites 🙂

  4. Linda says:

    This is just lovely. It puts me in mind of something from the Victorian era (which I love). And it looks so fun to stitch.

  5. Gert Helvey says:

    Can't wait to try this one…thank you Leah

  6. Saberz Mom says:

    Love this design, Leah! Am taking your Free Motion Fillers Vol 2 through Craftsy, and am going to try this one for the center square of the tote bag panel which has no design designated. Whoo-hoo!!!

  7. Jam-Quilts says:

    Been wanting a better insight in creating this design for a while . So happy to find this on your blog. .

  8. Sue Maxon says:

    I used a design very similar to this, but called it spiral vine, and it was bigger and more space between the vines. Cute.

  9. Anonymous says:

    Thanks Leah, I had a space on a baby quilt that I couldn't figure out what to do with. You solved that problem very nicely with this permed fern design. I love the fact that it is not really specific and can be worked in any direction. The super scrappy pink quilt I am working on has lots of seams and this design fits nicely into all the little nooks and crannys of the quilt block.

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