Quilt stitch templates

If you do not use the correct stitches, or worse, no stitches at all, the quilt will quickly become misshapen, warped, and eventually fall apart. This post will cover the seven most popular quilting stitches that are trending in A quilting stitch is a stitch that you use to sew the layers of your quilt together. These stitches can be created by hand or with a machine.

Many quilters use a decorative design with their stitches to add another layer of creativity to their projects. First, you need to check your batting instructions. Most packaged batting informs you how far apart your stitches can be. Next, you want to decide on the quilting stitch and design you want to accomplish on your quilt. Choosing your design helps you figure out how close your stitches should be. The seven different quilting stitches I highlight here are the most common designs I see for new quilts.

You can use many of these styles in various ways or mix them to create a truly unique quilting project. I suggest the running stitch. Mary I got the book and love it. She has included the template patterns and explains how to make your own at home. I felt this is great for people who want a smaller or larger design guide.

After reading your review on Stunning Stitches for Crazy Quilts, I immediately ordered the book, and will be ordering the templates directly. Thank you so much for sharing this with all of us. I am also looking forward to The Leafy Tree Kit. This book is mostly about how hand sewing is based on geometry but also includes templates similar to the ones you highlight.

I have not yet purchased the book and only got to look at it for a few minutes, but I am very interested in the concept and was surprised to see another product that uses the same idea so soon after seeing it for the first time! The book arrived today from Amazon! I am fascinated with…and I enjoy stitching… crazy quilts! This book has my imagination bubbling!!!!! I tried ordering the templates — through your Amazon page — at pm ET today!

The templates are out of stock! Probably within hours of your posting your message this morning! Thanks for your good analysis…the pros and cons…of various embroidery items! They are sooooo helpful to me. I am a crazy quilter who was delighted to see a review of both the book and the templates included in the book. I purchased it right away. I also enjoy all the suggestions for stitch bands that I can either use as I see from the book or tweak to suit myself. But I also love all the stitches I find here that I use to build stitch bands that are all my own.

Kathy also has some free templates on her website. I printed one on cardstock, and punched the holes with a t-pin over cork. Running stitches, back stitches and chain stitches are used in hand sewing. On a sewing machine a straight stitch is used.

As with any creative work, there are many ways of doing these stitches and the effect they create varies with these methods. This involves straight line stitches made in parallel rows at regular intervals.

This is the easiest of all quilting stitches. You can make marks on the top and sew over this or attach masking tape and sew along the edge.

Square shaped quilting — Rows of parallel quilting stitches are made straight and across; they cross each other forming square shapes. Diamond shaped quilting — When the parallel stitched rows are made diagonally, they cross and form diamond shapes. On quilts made by professionals, intricate complex looking designs are worked out with template shapes — they make the designs easy to replicate across the quilt.

Experienced quilters use special metal templates. Commonly used designs for quilting stitches are wine-glass, leaf shape, heart, scale, feather and rope.

Computerized sewing machines can be used to make pre-designed stitches on the quilt that looks similar to ones made with templates. You can also trace the designs. Check out this post on embroidery transfers to know different methods on transfering any designs on fabric. The quilting stitches are done in a random fashion in this method.

You can use the darning foot for making these free motion stitches. When you are not marking any particular design and stitching in this manner, you will need a lot of practise to get the stitching look even and good, especially where you cross lines or where pivoting is needed.

Learn more about free motion embroidery here. This is a variation of the free motion quilting stitching. The specialty of this stitching is that the free motion stitches would not cross each other at any point. Free quilting templates are provided whenever they are needed to create one of the many quilt block patterns on the Generations Quilt Patterns website.

Follow this quick guide to insure they are printed and cut so that your patches are exactly the right size. You'll learn about the template material I use, how to print and how to cut using these free printable templates.

Since we'll be using our rotary cutter, there's no need for thicker or sturdier templates. If one gets messed up, simply print another. If you find you do need a sturdier template, try using a card stock—usually the 67lb weight from the office supply store. You MUST use an inkjet printer because it doesn't make heat.

Lasers create heat to set their toner. That heat melts the plastic coating on the freezer paper, messing up the inside of your printer. No heat equals no melting. It's as simple as that! Always, always, always use the free Adobe reader program to print the quilting templates and paper piecing patterns.

Click here to get your free download of it if you don't have the latest version already. Below is what a messed up one looks like—ugh! All that work for nothing The grainline arrows show the direction the templates should be laid out on the fabric. The arrow should always be parallel to the selvedge. On templates with two arrows, just choose one. The other will, by default, be on the crosswise grain, just as it should be.

Patches cut on grain create blocks whose outside edges are stable and less likely to stretch throughout construction. Click here for more information on grainline and why it's important in our quilts. In other programs they are either positioned completely wrong as shown above or they've disappeared. After you've opened the PDF quilting template file in Adobe, click on the print icon in the top bar. In the preview page above you can see the grainline arrows ARE in the correct position—inside the solid stitching lines.

On PDF template and paper piecing pattern pages printed from the Generations Quilt Patterns site, you'll always find a small square on the page below, left. This square measures 1" exactly when it's printed correctly below, right. To conserve paper, print one copy. Check the 1" square for accuracy.

If you're right on, print as many copies as you'd like. All the free quilting templates on this site have a solid black stitching lines just like the templates for the 4" Finished Diamond in a Square block that is shown in the following example.