Machine Quilting Workshop

I have volunteered to conduct a machine quilting workshop at my quilt guild in mid January. I have never done anything like this before so I have no idea what I have gotten myself into. It will be an all day workshop so I thought I'd better start planning how we might spend our time.
We will begin by making a few quilt sandwiches for practice. I have begun preparing some samples of the type of stitches I'd like to demonstrate. These are what I have so far, I'll add more as I complete them.
In the workshop we will be doing mostly free motion stitching but I thought perhaps it would be a good idea to go over marking and stitching stencil designs as well. The first example is a simple stencil, stitched & echo quilted with lots of small stippling applied all around so that the stencil design can really stand out. An important aspect of machine quilting is thread tension so I have prepared these samples using different colours of thread in the needle and bobbin. The right side was stitched with green and the reverse is the pink.

Not sure if you can tell from these pictures but the stitches are well balanced.

One of my favourite stitches to do is really a great one to use on art quilts. It provides terrific texture and is super easy to do, just go round and round in a circular motion making big and little circles........you just can't make a mistake with this one.


Not sure if there is a name for this one at left but it is another "fill" stitch that not only looks wonderful, it really is not all that difficult to master. I learned how to stitch this one this weekend. I am confident that with practice this stitch will become a favourite.

I hope to have a wide variety of samples stitched and ready for the workshop. The bonus is that I will be getting in lots and lots of practice........ and practice is the key to achieving machine quilting you can be proud of.