I’m excited to share with you how I quilted my Geese in the Garden quilts – using two different but super simple and fun walking foot quilting designs. These are designs that I teach in my quilting classes and they can also be found in my books Piece and Quilt with Precuts and Machine Quilting with Style.
Wavy Line Quilting on Geese in the Garden – Warm
Most people think that stitch in the ditch is the easiest thing you can do with your walking foot, but wavy lines “near” the ditch are much easier to accomplish. Then, when you are ready to tackle straight line quilting, embrace unmarked, uneven line spacing for a quicker finish!
Irregular Parallel Lines on Geese in the Garden – Cool
Make a Quilting Plan
I originally developed the idea to make a quilting plan in my books, then refined my technique so that I could clearly teach it to others in my online video class – The Quilter’s Path. In a nutshell, I like to draw my designs out on an image of the finished quilt top to see how it will look before I quilt the quilt. Below is the quilting plan for both quilts, which is included in my Geese in the Garden quilt pattern.
The reason I like to quilt irregularly spaced, imperfect lines is because I know I’m going to “mess up” anyway, so why not build it into the design? After all – you know what they say: do something once and it could be a “mistake.” But do it two or more times and it’s a design element! Plus, it’s a lot faster to quilt imperfect lines than perfect ones!
Thread Choice
I recently released my new thread kit with Aurifil – The Varigated collection and was super excited to try some of my new colors out on these quilts.
Click here to get my Aurifil thread collection.
Because the prints are so colorful and busy, a variegated thread looks great and helps blend everything together. I chose Stone Washed Denim #3770 for the cool version. Even though it looks like a solid colored thread, it has subtle color changes that will look great on this quilt. Because it’s more on the pastel side, it also blends in with the rest of the prints.
For the warm version, I selected #3840 French Lilac. The purply-pinks blend beautifully and add wonderful texture. When choosing colors, I lay the spool across the quilt and see which color disappears into the quilt the most. If I’m not using and exact matching thread, I’ll usually go a shade lighter rather than darker, as that seems to blend in the best.
To do the actual quilting, first I quilt a series of “anchor” lines to secure the quilt. These can be lines in, or near, the ditch, randomly spaced across the quilt to prevent it from shifting. Then I fill in with additional lines as desired.
Check out this video of me quilting the warm version with a simple wavy line design, following the pieced design of the quilt. I’m using my BERNINA dual feed, which acts just like a walking foot, but allows me to use different feet on my machine.
For the cool version, I used painter’s tape in some of the areas to divid up the space and give me nice, crips lines. When stitching right next to the tape, I have to be careful not to stitch it to the quilt!
Once I’ve established a few anchor lines, I’ll fill in between the lines at random intervals, using the edge of my foot as a guideline for spacing. Here’s another short video of my quilting the cool version, adding more lines in between previously spaced lines:
Finally, I prefer to bind my quilts by hand because I love the clean look it gives to them. Here’s a final video showing how I make each stitch by hand, once it’s been sewn onto the quilt by machine. (See links at the end for my full binding tutorial.)
Here’s a short video showing how I stitch the binding by hand to finish:
I really enjoyed sharing more behind the scenes of making this quilt. To help support the time it takes to create these posts, please use the links below to purchase the pattern, or find my entire pattern and fabric line at shop.ChristaQuilts.com. Many thanks!!
Christa Quilts 
Enjoyed your TQS show (2409). Am trying to improve my domestic machine quilting techniques and learned some new techniques from you. BUT, my biggest challenge is managing the size and weight of big quilts. I have an old Bernina (440 QE) with a regrettably small throat and I struggle MASSIVELY with moving those quilts through that throat. Any suggestions? (I quilt with and without the BSR. I’ve tried rulers with the Bernina ruler foot, because sadly, rulers don’t work with the BSR.)
Thanks for all of your tutorials. They are so helpful. I have finished my Rainbow Weave quilt and am ready to start the quilting. I just got a Bernina Q20 and after many practice pieces would like this to be my first big quilt to do on it. I want to do straight line quilting, probably with a ruler, but was wondering if I should be using a walking foot on my domestic instead. What are your thoughts? Thanks.