May's Free Motion Quilting - Double Stippling

This month, our teacher is Leah Day, a wonderful free motion quilter.  If you are an internet quilter searcher, you may have seen a site with a new FMQ every day for 365 days.  This is Leah.  Borrowing a quote from SewCalGal, she writes about Leah:

"In her effort to share her insights, teach and inspire others, she launched the The Free Motion Quilting Project where she created video tutorials and shared insights on 365 different free motion quilting designs, over a period of 365 days.  Shortly after this project, she launched a FMQ Quilt-Along ,which SewCalGal definitely recommends to any quilter interested in learning/improving their FMQ skills to participate in. Each Wednesday a Leah publishes a video lesson, and you have an opportunity to try out the ideas, then link up your progress on her blog."

Our challenge this month is a method called Double Stippling where a large stipple is created to cover a large area, then you stitch your way back up that line with smaller stippling crossing over the line.  A variation of this is called Railroad Tracks, where the ends of the stipples are straight rather than curved.  I need more practice on making those corners.  When I don't want a corner, I make one, when I want a sharp corner, it ends up rounded off! 


May 2012 FQM Block

I visually divided this block into half square triangles.  The Double Stipple is on the left triangle and the Railroad Tracks is on the right.  A great way to fill in space and not have the same ol' stipple quilting!

Keep on Stitching!!