All about Quilting McTavishing

Published: Wed, 02/07/18

Leah Day DVD
Happy wet, rainy February my quilting friend!

This month is always dreary and gray in my neck of the woods, so I'm making an effort to stay dry and cozy behind my sewing machine this winter.

Anyway, , I have lots of fun quilting tutorials to share with you along with a personal podcast about a big challenge I'm taking on this month.

But first, we have a new DVD just added to the Quilt Shop today. Free Motion Quilting a Sampler is a 2-disc DVD with over 9 hours of awesome quilting instructions.

You'll learn how to quilt a variety of beginner quilting designs AND how to quilt them into a beautiful sampler quilt.

Piece AND Quilt a Serendipity Star Block
I have a huge treat for you today. My awesome quilting friend Luis Sanchez has created a beautiful quilt block called Serendipity Star and I'm going to quilt it with two fun designs.

I only quilted a single block, but I'm really tempted to create this baby quilt after watching Luis's tutorial because it's even more interesting when connected together with other blocks.

I wanted to add movement and texture, but I also wanted to emphasize the pinwheel shape in the star.

Luis and Leah quilt
Ultimate McTavishing Quilting Tutorial
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Yes, that is indeed Mctavishing you see in Luis and my block above!

I can't explain how much Karen's McTavishing design changed my perspective on free motion quilting. Up until that point, I'd only quilted Stippling which is a beautiful texture, and it doesn't contain the movement and flow of McTavishing.

What struck me immediately was how much McTavishing looks like water or wind. It also involves two new techniques that are essential for many free motion quilting designs: echoing and travel stitching.

Echoing is stitching a set distance evenly around a quilting motif, another line of quilting, or a shape on your quilt. This could be stitching 1/4 inch away from the ditches (seamlines) on your quilt or 1/8 inch away from an appliqued shape. Quilting a line evenly around another shape is called echoing.

For this tutorial I quilted on my home machine, a Bernina 1230, and my Grace Qnique Longarm set up in a Continuum Frame. I hope you enjoy seeing how this design was quilted on both types of machines.

Quilting a Big Quilt with Concentric Squares
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I'm so excited to see all the beautiful Rainbow Log Cabin quilts taking shape and so many quilters quilting this big quilt on their home machines. Remember, you can join the Machine Quilting Party anytime and begin quilting along with us.

This week the machine quilting process should feel easier as we stitch the middle section of our log cabin quilt with Concentric Squares.


Click Here to find the Rainbow Log Cabin quilt pattern in the book Explore Walking Foot Quilting with Leah Day.
Let's Quilt Gridlines
We're kicking off the second month of the Machine Quilting Party and continuing our quest to learn more about walking foot quilting with new quilting tutorials shared every week.

Let's learn how to quilt a really simple design called Gridlines.
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The only other time challenging thing with Gridlines is deciding how to mark it on your quilt. For this block, I used a guide bar on my walking foot to space out the lines. This is great for lines spaced 1 inch apart or wider because it won't be noticeable from a distance if the lines aren't perfectly spaced.

Updates on the Whole 30
Last week I shared a podcast about a big lifestyle change I've taken on as I start the Whole 30 Diet. Thank you so much for all the wonderful support and kind comments we've received about this podcast episode.

I've now been on the diet for a little under two weeks and I feel great. Every evening I'm exercising with a intense 10 - 15 minute video workout and I thought I'd share one video with you each week.

Recipe
This video is from Rebecca Louise Fitness and I love her upbeat style and how quickly she moves you through the workout. I HATE working out, but she makes it much more tolerable by counting down and you don't stay with any single excercise too long.


I've also been cooking a lot more on this diet because it's basically meat, vegetables, and fruit - nothing else. No more sandwiches for lunch for me!

Here's a recipe for a delicious meal using acorn squash. I've modified it a bit because I never seem to have spinach on hand, but I always have mushrooms. It tastes great either way and I love the combination of sweet apple, caramelized onions, and savory sausage.

That's it for this week. I hope you check out Luis and my collaboration block and also the Free Motion Quilt a Sampler DVD, which is excellent for free motion beginners.

Until next week, let's go quilt.

Leah Day