Getting Squiggly With It

A new blogging friend (Cindy) asked about the squiggly quilting on the Magic Nine-Patch Santas table runner I showed you yesterday.  She said she'd like to try it out and wondered how I do it!  I do it a lot.  It's my "go to" quilting design.  Check the top of this basket I made for a dear, dear friend:

I put a little cable's worth up there at the top.  All I do is use my walking foot! Feed dogs engaged, nothing planned, no thinking, just slide the item you want to quilt under the walking foot and do sort of a bobbing and weaving thing. It helps to sing "La la la la la" while you're doing it, so you stay loose, but if your Studio or sewing space is on the same floor as, say, your husband's office, you might want to sing it in your head.  Or quietly.  Just... ya know.  There will be no video available on this.  Ha ha ha!

If you don't have a walking foot - I highly recommend getting one!  They make them for most machines.  It's probably my favorite foot.  If your layers are secured well, you could probably do it with just a "regular" sewing foot.

And yes, that was another Christmas gift!  Just when I thought I had them all covered!  I made it following the same tute I used for the basket at this link, only decided I could improvise a bit.  I would have done another group of squiggling in the desert camo stripe but, wow! That fabric did NOT like me at ALL! Maybe I was using the wrong needle ... maybe it's the rip-stop fabric ... I'm not sure, but I stuck to the canvas parts of the basket.  I LOVE how it came out - and REALLY loved giving it to my friend -- especially because I got to give it to her in person!!!

Thanks for reading!  And Cindy, I hope you give it a try!  Just remember the "La la la la la" part and it'll all come together.  :)