Stippling
So, I’ve taken the plunge and begun to practice free-motion quilting. I arbitrarily chose a pattern that I’d heard was the easiest to master, stippling. In the hands of an expert, it looks like this:
Sometimes I think it looks beautiful. Other times, like brain coral!
It didn’t take me long to discover that stippling should not be the first undertaking of a beginner! The pattern is dense, the direction of sewing changes constantly, the curvy ins and outs are quite small, perfectly rounded shapes are essential, and fast sewing is key to the flowing look of the design. All of which are beyond my meager skills, as the next few pictures attest.
What you’re seeing are my 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th (finally, some improvement!) and 20th samplers and the back of my 25th effort.



At this point, I heaved the 65-pound Bernina down the stairs and into the car (seat-belting it in place!) and drove to the nearest expert for hands-on help.
Sharon and I spent 2-1/2 hours cleaning the machine, looking for errant threads, experimenting with every conceivable combination of thread and bobbin tension. It turned out that everything that was amiss with my samplers reflected my inexperience—except for two things. We discovered that my default bobbin tension produced tighter-than-normal tension and that a tiny icon in the bobbin case recommended a looser setting to achieve the true factory default. And it turned out that a flange in the bobbin case had somehow rotated out of alignment.
During all this patient experimenting, Sharon cheerfully plied me with tips and suggestions and didn’t let me leave until I could produce some curvier curves without tears.
I revived myself with an apricot-almond oatcake from a nearby bakery, went swimming and then came home to try again.

I’m still a long way off from real stippling, but at least there’s visible improvement. More important, perhaps, I actually like the look of the pattern in these last two photos.
My plan now is to continue making stippling samplers, but not exclusively. I’ve found some easier, looser, larger free-motion patterns, and I’ll add those to my daily mix. I’m blazing through yards of muslin, and I treated myself (on Sharon’s orders) to some large floral prints from Satin Moon for practice in outlining shapes.
I’m starting to have fun!


































