Let's Quilt Circles with Pebbles and Rocks

Published: Thu, 07/21/22

Hi ,

Row 11 in our FMQ Starter Panel is perfect for quilting circles! Learn how to free motion quilt circles two ways - Rocks and Pebbles - to get lots of practice with this design:

Free Motion Quilting Circles - Rocks and Pebbles - Start Quilting #7

The Janome 1600 Eats Pebbles for Breakfast

Rocks and Pebbles are great fillers if you are in the need for speed, and speaking of speedy sewing, the Janome 1600 is the queen of speed.

The 1600 is a lockstitch machine. This means you can only select the stitch length because you can only stitch a straight line. There is no zigzag or decorative stitches of any kind.

But what you lose in fancy stitches, you gain in speed! This machine is capable of stitching 1600 stitches per minute, which will be really useful if you ever decide to put this machine on a quilting frame or sew garments professionally.

Click Here to read more about this very nice and free motion-friendly sewing machine.

Start Quilting Circles - Underwater Rocks

Rocks are the best design to start free motion quilting circles because:

You can be messy - seriously, no seam rippers allowed.
It’ll still look great - Even super messy, this design looks terrific.
Super repetition - The more times you swing around the circle shape (2-3 times or more for Rocks), the more practice you get.

Repetition is the key to mastering any free motion quilting design.

The more you quilt it, the more you make that movement with your arms or shift the quilt with your hands, the better you will become.

Free Motion Quilting Pebbles

Once you fill one half of the Ribbon Candy line with Rocks, fill the other half with Pebbles. This side is going to be slower and more carefully stitched.

The idea with Pebbling is to stitch a circle, then stack another circle right next to it, travel stitching around the curves.

No, these aren’t going to be perfect circles, hence the name Pebbles or Pebbling. We’re allowing an organic shape to form that nicely fits into our space and isn’t too tiny. We’re quilting rocks and pebbles here, not sand.

Pebbling is supposed to be cleaner, with single circles stitched and careful travel stitching. Click Here to learn more about quilting Pebbling.

In case you missed any of the videos in this new free motion quilting practice series, you'll find all six of the past tutorials linked below.

See you next week, .

Let's go quilt,

Leah Day

All Videos from our Start Quilting Series:

#1 - Unboxing the Free Motion Quilting Starter Kit

#2 - Loading a Hoop Frame

#3 - FMQ Warm Up and Beginner Design

#4 - Beginner Skill Building Design Loops and Shells

#5 - How to Sew a Frame Weight

#6 - Testing the Frame Weight with Loops

Leah Day, P.O Box 386, Earl, NC 28038, USA

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