Top Five Tips: Straight Line Quilting

Tip Two

Make use of any markings on your sewing machine foot to help your straight line quilting. If you are using any of the lines on your quilt top, like patchwork block seams, as guides for placing the quilting lines then you can use those rather than marking lines yourself. For example, if you want to quilt 1 inch either side of specific seams you could use the following tools to help:

• markings on your sewing machine foot; some machine feet have either markings on them or have edges that can be used as a guide
• if the foot you are using doesn’t have any markings (or they aren’t in the best place) you can add your own using small pieces of washi tape
• a sewing machine walking foot with often come with a guide bar that is pushed into the back of the walking foot to create an adjustable guide

Tip Three

Sometimes you might be using a straight line quilting design that doesn’t link to the seam lines on your quilt top. My favourite tools for this are a Hera marker and a quilting ruler. A Hera marker is a hand-held tool, usually plastic or wooden, that creates a crease line. When used with a quilting ruler you can “draw” crease lines on your basted quilt top and then quilt directly on the lines. The best thing about using a Hera marker to mark your quilt top, rather than a fabric pen or pencil, is it creates just a crease rather than an actual mark so you don’t have to wash the lines out…or worry that they might not wash out!

Tip Five

Simple, straight lines all over a quilt can be really effective but don’t forget that there are so many more options for “just” straight lines. Much like other quilting styles, the only limit to straight line quilting designs is your imagination. There are lots of different ways to create all-over quilting designs with straight lines, or you can add straight line motifs to specific areas of your quilt in a similar way to free motion quilting. If you want to learn more about “outside the box” styles then I’d highly recommend the book “Walk” by Jacquie Gering.