Can I just tell you how awesome Jacquie Gering’s newest Craftsy class is? It’s called Creative Quilting With Your Walking Foot and is truly one of the best classes I’ve watched.
Jacquie’s class is chock full of good tips and tricks for using your walking foot to achieve amazing machine quilted results. One of my favorite tongue-in-cheek reminders she offered is that it’s a walking foot, not a running foot! So going slow is the key to walking foot quilting success. š
I’ve met Jacquie in person a few times and am currently working with her on some behind-the-scenes QuiltCon show prep. She is probably one of the most kind-hearted people I’ve ever met, and she really cares about those to whom she teaches. In this class, she’s all about sharing what she knows in such an easy-going conversational way, that you can’t help but enjoy every minute of the class.
Sinking Sun by Jacquie Gering – one of my all-time favorites! Image courtesy of Jacquie.
In Creative Quilting With Your Walking Foot, Jacquie makes the comparison of quilting to a good paint job: more time may be spent prepping your work than you think, but good preparation is another key to good quilting success. She echoes my sentiments that proper basting and good tools help eliminate puckers and tucks. She prefers spray basting and flat battings (hear, hear!) and one tip I picked up was that you can iron your cotton batting to help get it nice and smooth. Now why didn’t I think of that??
One of my favorite “modern” quilting textures is matchstick quilting where you literally quilt every 1/4″ to 1/8″ over the surface of your quilt. I love Jacquie’s method for achieving precise lines that add such amazing texture to her quilts! If nothing else, this class is worth it for that demo alone!
Jacquie’s amazing matchstick quilting – one of my favorite techniques!
The Class runs for approximately 3 1/2 hours, broken up into 8 easily digestible lessons. Topics covered include walking foot basics, decorative stitches, quilting curves & text, and more! It ends with a section on quilting strategies which is super helpful for you to learn how to manage the bulk of a large quilt under the machine.
Jacquie validates many of the techniques that I like to employ in my walking foot quilting, such as using the edge of your foot as a guide and counting stitches when figuring out when to turn your work for echo quilting.
Jacquie shows how to quilt wonderfully straight lines as shown in Hidden Gems, above.
I love how Jacquie is not afraid to shy away from quilting large quilts and she doesn’t even quilt with a super-sized machine, either. She introduces several ways to add gentle curves to your quilts, and she offers tips on how to start and stop, along with what to do when you run out of thread.
I personally get excited when others finally understand just how fun quilting your own quilts can be. With this class, you can learn how to quilt all those quilts (modern or not) without feeling like free-motion quilting is your only option to achieve amazing results.
Jacquie’s hexagon quilt – all done on her home machine. Image courtesy of Jacquie.
I highly recommend Creative Quilting With Your Walking Foot. In fact, I think I’ll go watch it again, just to pick up more tips that I may have missed the first time around!
Christa Quilts 
I bought this class when it came out and actually just watched it about two weeks ago when I began quilting a new quilt. You are definitely right, she knows her stuff and has an ease in the way that she introduces and teaches it. Great review!
Excellent review. I will definitely be taking her class after reading this! I also love that I have the exact same machine as she does!
I had the privilege of attending one of Jacquie’s workshops in Maryland. She’s wonderful. I’m enrolled in her first Craftsy class but need to get myself signed up for this one.
I recently had an opportunity to attend a lecture Jacquie was giving locally. One of the big take-aways for me was to iron the cotton batting. That tip too, was a “Duh-why-didn’t-I-think-of-that” moment for me! Haven’t had a chance to try it out yet. Thanks for the review, this class is on my list!
I’m taking this class and just finished my first walking foot quilt! Jacquie is a wonderful instructor! I’ll be posting it in the class forum soon. Thanks for your great review.
Awesome! I’ll have to check it out!
š Kelly @ My Quilt Infatuation
I signed up for this class last week and am almost half the way through. It does have some great ideas and I asked her a question ( late on a Sunday afternoon) and got a response within a couple of hours…. WOW. I have tried to be a “free motion” person but without a lot of success and am so happy they offered this class. Something I am looking forward to expanding my range with because I like using the walking foot and kept thinking I should be able to do more with it.
Now, thanks to Jacquie I can. Very clear instruction.
thanks Christa for bringing these things to our attention. I do mmost of my quilting finishes using my walking foot so getting tips is very helpful
Hi Christa. What a wonderful review. I just watched Jacquie’s class this weekend and loved it. I’m trying to finish a quilt top so I can use some of her methods. I’ve had the honor to meet Jacquie twice and she shocked me when she remembered meeting me the first time. Thanks!
I watched this class awhile ago. I’ve been quilting for 5+ years, and I really learned a lot and have used her techniques in all the quilts I’ve made since I took the class.
I am not a ‘modern quilt’ person, but definitely a vintage quilt person. I see how many of the vintage quilters used straight lines on their quilts so your remarks that we don’t have to do stipples is right on target for me. I used to do all my quilts in straight lines or at the very least, add a small curve in the long lines. I think I will start that again, it just looks so good. Thank you for inspiring me.
Thank you Christa for the loely review of Jackie’s class. As a big fan of Crafty’s I have not signed up for her class yet. I will do it asap thanks to your review.
Your posts are always wonderful but this one contains the absolute best reminder…….it’s a WALKING NOT RUNNING foot!!! I should make a huge banner to put at my machines as a reminder!!!! Hugs…………………
You do a great job with these class reviews. Thank you for sharing.
My favorite one is the serpentine one. You can tell if its walking foot or free motion š
I have been watching this class this week and thoroughly enjoying it! Like you, I want to watch it again!
Thank you Christa! I’m going to check this out for sure.
I really like Jacquie’s teaching style from another Craftsy class I took. I purchased this one too, but have not had the time to start watching it. Thanks for the review, now I am really eager to get going, as I have two quilts ready for quilting.
I agree it was a fantastic class!!