Free Motion Quilting

The time had come to start quilting the background and although I had decided on the motifs and shapes I was nervous about starting to put stitches into the background as once into the silk any mistakes would be hard to rectify.  Silk shows pin marks and unpicking could result in damage to the silk surface.


Earlier I had decided on where to place the coloured bottles and had put pink tacking stitches at the top of each one from where the perfume vapour would emerge.  This also gave me an indication of where the blank spaces would be on the quilt and where I needed to quilt bottle outlines and more perfume vapour.

Having decided I needed three more bottles I set about creating the shapes as before using a wadding shape bonded to the silk, cut out with a 1/4" seam allowance and then folding the allowance over and tacking around the edges.  Here are two of those extra shapes.

The quilted bottle shapes need a steady hand and the perfume rising from the bottles some artistic flair and a steady hand.  Courageously I made a start and these were the preparations.  Silk is quite heavy and I had two layers plus some thin wadding.  I cleared a free space all around the machine and clipped my machine's table extension in place.  Free motion foot; a fine needle for the silk; polyester thread in the needle and the bobbin and the machine set for free motion stitching with tension at 1 and stitch length at 0. I brought the lower thread up to the top and pushed them both back from the needle and I put on my cotton quilting gloves which grip the surface to help move it around.

I wanted to sew perfect shapes but this was not easy.  Manipulating the whole quilt under and around the machine while at the same time pushing and moving the part being stitched into the shapes and patterns that I wanted was extremely demanding.  I had drawn faint bottle outlines to stitch around but then regretted this because I decided to stitch each bottle twice for emphasis and it being free motion getting the lines exactly repeated on top of each other was not easy so my drawn lines then were noticeable.  So I had to find a way of removing them and thankfully a soft clean rubber was successful.

I felt disappointed when I realised perfection was not going to be an option but having started had to continue so I hoped that each bottle shape would improve as I went along. In the end I settled for less than perfection and concentrated on getting the bottles in the right place.  Once I stitched enough bottles it was quite a relief to start the perfume vapour patterns and I stitched these once only.  Although a couple went awry and had to be partly unpicked  the freeform nature of the pattern meant it was an easier task and I got into a rhythm making some small and some large according to the size of the bottle they were rising from.

The needle-turn applique was the next stage and for this I used clover applique needles which are smooth and strong with an easy to thread eye.

Needle-turn applique requires neat tiny stitches and the end of the needle is used to tuck under loose edges and threads as you work.  If you are right handed working from right to left with the edge being stitched farthest away from you.  A stitch into the background next to where the thread has emerged, two or three threads under on the wrong side then up through the very edge of the applique being sewn. 

This is work in progress and the next stage, after finishing appliqueing the bottles is to start making the bias strips for the stems of the myrtle bush and the leaves and 3d flowers which will weave across and around the bottles.

To be continued......