Some quilters, both beginners and experienced quilters alike, find stippling to be difficult to understand. If you have never finished a quilt using this method, you should at least give it a shot because it is such a lovely technique. If you have never tried it, you should try it.
A quilt receives its finishing touch in the form of stippling, which is a complex pattern of machine stitching. Free motion quilting utilizes this method as one of its techniques. Stippling can also be thought of as having the appearance of a jigsaw puzzle, which is yet another way to describe it. There will never be a point where the lines meet.
Start by perfecting your echo stitching skills before moving on to the stippling experiment. You can achieve the effect of an echo by first stitching a short wavy line, then moving your needle up about one-quarter of an inch and continuing to follow (or echo) the line below. If you want to learn how to stipple, one of the skills you need to develop first is the ability to create a continuous line of stitches, which you can do with the echo stitch.
The stippling technique is an echoing method that involves more than just stitching in a wavy line. Imagine a jigsaw puzzle piece. Stitch a pattern that looks like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle, starting from the left and working your way to the right. Continue stitching away from it while adding another outline of a jigsaw puzzle.
Your first section of quilting should be finished off with one final piece that resembles a jigsaw puzzle. Move up to the next line and echo the first lines, but this time move from right to left. Do this without stopping your stitching in between lines. Instead of simply stitching echo lines over and over again, raise the design up when you reach the ends of the line, and then stitch down near the line that was just stitched.
These are good areas in which to add another piece that resembles a jigsaw puzzle, and you can incorporate it into your echoing as the lines on your quilt grow away from you.
On a quilt, stippling lines are not supposed to cross one another under any circumstances. If the quilt is intended as a gift or for personal use, then the fact that your stippled lines overlap is not a problem at all. However, if you are participating in a quilting competition, crossed lines in a stippling project will count against your overall skill level.
In stipple quilting, maintaining a consistent distance between each line that is repeated is an additional important aspect. This too will require some practice on your part. However, once you have mastered the skill, you will be able to appreciate the stunning end product that the method produces.
The stippling technique may appear simple, but until you become accustomed to machine quilting, the finished product will not be of professional quality. The best way to improve is to practice!
When you have the hang of feeding the fabric at a consistent speed and are sewing lines at a consistent width, stippling will truly appear to be very simple and straightforward for you to do.
Remember that the speed at which you feed the fabric through the machine when machine quilting is what determines the size and length of your stitches. When it comes to quilting, one of the most important aspects is maintaining consistent stitches, which is also essential for stippling.
When you are ready to include stippling in your quilting projects, you will need to decide whether you want to stipple an entire quilt or use stippling as a filler. Either option is acceptable.
For example, if you quilt in the ditch (around the items of your quilt block) but want to add some sort of filler in the unquilted “blank spaces,” stippling is a great form of quilting to add to the project to add to it.
Meandering is a different quilting technique from stippling, and the two should not be confused with one another. Meandering is like taking a random, leisurely walk. You could quilt circles into one section of your quilt, stars into another, swirls in yet another, and so on and so forth.
Keep in mind that if you are quilting for your own pleasure, whether or not your lines cross is not a particularly important consideration. If you do intend to enter your work into shows, however, you will need to pay extra attention to the width of your stitches as well as the distance between the quilted lines.
You won’t need much practice to produce very nice results in your quilting projects if you just do a little stippling here and there.
Diane Gaudynski is responsible for the stipple stitching.
This article was generously provided by http://www.How-to-Quilt.com. Thank you!
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