Hi , 

I love experimenting with new techniques and awesome quilting tools. No other craft gives us so many possibilities for creativity and fun. In this week's short video, I share a new way I'm quilting with stencils - tracing using a laser light.

Click Here to find a short video on laser tracing!

Click Here to find the Spring Flowers Quilting Stencil Collection

This collection includes the 6-inch flower stencil from this video, plus borders, blocks, triangles, and hexagons to fit all areas of your quilts.

The technique of quilting a specific design in a specific space of your quilt is called Custom Quilting. Instead of quilting all over the patchwork (as if you didn't painstakingly piece all those fabrics together), custom quilting honors your efforts and the pieced design.

Check out this video to learn more about custom quilting:

Laser Tracing Tips

When it came to quilting the flowers on my Double Wedding Ring Quilt, I could have quilted through the stencil paper and quilt at the same time. That would probably have resulted in better alignment, but more time and effort since I'd have to rip the paper away after quilting.

Instead I set up my longarm laser light on the front of the machine, plugging it into the accessory port above the needle. The most time consuming part of this process is positioning the design and laser. Roll the machine to position the needle at the center of the block, then move the laser light to point on the center of the flower stencil.

Roll the machine around, checking each petal to be sure it fits nicely into the block you're quilting. Make sure to pin the stencil to the quilt because it can easily shift out of position as the machine rolls over. I did this and ended up with a few... 😂 creative placements:

I solved this simply - by throwing more thread at it! While the flower is off center, it looks okay because I filled in the extra space around it with Stippling.

How to Sew a Frame Weight

Another tool that gives you much better control over your longarm machine is a Frame Weight. This is a tube of fabric filled with rice or beans or BBs. Place the weight on the quilt where it will press against the machine bed. 

This adds pressure to the machine and helps to slow it down. I know my quilting would have been much more erratic and tracing the stencil with the laser much more difficult without this tool.

Click Here to learn how to sew a Frame Weight

February Pantograph Quilting Party

I'm celebrating one of my favorite styles of quilting this month - pantographs!

Our pantograph designs are sold as digital download PDFs. Download the file, print, trim, then tape the pages together to create one continuous line design.

I include two sizes of pantographs in each file so whether you're quilting on a home machine or quilting on a longarm machine, you can quilt with these pantograph designs and know they will fit from beginning to the end of even a king sized quilt.

And yes, the size of your longarm machine determines the size of pantograph you can quilt. Check out this size chart to see how you can mix and match pantograph designs together to create the perfect fit for your machine:

Would you like to learn even more about pantograph quilting? Click Here to find our Quilting Pantographs Guidebook which covers all the steps to quilting with pantographs on all styles of quilting frames and with all types of machines.

This Guidebook also includes the Leafy Meander Pantograph so you can give this method a try and see if you like it:

Free Pantograph Accessory Kit

Through February, we're including over $200 in pantograph quilting accessories with all Grace longarm machines and the Little Rebel sewing machine.

This pantograph accessory kit includes:

• Laser light to fit your machine
• Pantograph Quilting Guidebook PDF
• 10 Downloadable Pantograph Quilting Designs

Click Here to find all Grace Quilting Machines. These are affordable longarm machines, designed and built for home-based, hobby quilters. 

That's it for this week, my quilting friend. I'm having a blast quilting this Double Wedding Ring quilt and trying out lots of new techniques. Did you notice the new foot I was using in the video?

This is Grace Company's new Super Glide Quilting Foot and it works great for quilting over bulky seams, or in the case of that Double Wedding Ring quilt, all of the pleats I had to fold in the edge to make it lay flat. I'm sure this foot will come in very handy as I quilt this project.

Let's go quilt,

Leah Day