Making Connections: A Free-Motion Quilting Workbook

Combine 12 free-motion motifs for limitless possibilities, including curves, curls, leaves, spikes, waves and loops. Streamline your free-motion quilting with this workbook full of exercises to build your skills. Easy-to-follow, step-by-step illustrations for each design suite show how to adapt the quilting design for blocks, borders, sashing and allover quilting. Practice each design with a pencil on the included practice pages before stitching by machine, then put your skills to the test on a gorgeous pieced sampler project. These creative continuous-line quilting designs can be used on both longarm and domestic machines.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 12 Connecting Designs Basic Connecting Design Connecting Curves with Petals Connecting Curves with Spikes Connecting Curves with Leaf Connecting Curves with Curls Connecting Waves Connecting Loops Connecting Curl #1 Connecting Curl #2 Connecting Double Curl Connecting Brackets Connecting Brackets with Spikes Making the most of your Connections Pattern for Sunshine & Lemon Drops Putting it all Together Block designs Triangle designs About the Author

About the Author :
Dorie Hruska is an award-winning longarm quilter, teacher, and author. Her work has been featured in a wall calendar, and in other authors' books. Dorie lives in Highlandville, Missouri, with her husband and children.

Review :
Combine 12 free-motion motifs for limitless possibilities, including curves, curls, leaves, spikes, waves and loops. Practice each design with a pencil on the practice pages that are included in the book before stitching by machine, then put your skills to the test on a gorgeous pieced sampler project. These designs can be used on both longarm and domestic machines.-- "Today's Quilter" Now, if you really want to exercise your mental and physical muscles, try out this book. As Dorie explains in her introduction, 'Time is a precious thing. You can spend your time stitching individual motifs in each are of a quilt, stopping and cutting your threads after each design, or you can save time by connecting the designs--stitching them from one side of the quilt all the way to the other side, with just one start and stop.' This book hosts a collections of custom quilting designs for fewer starts and stops using a grid of cross-hatched lines. Dorie explains how to follow a clock-wise direction with a repeating progression of lines and fillers. Clear illustrations show how to set up the designs across a sample to learn the design process before trying it out on your quilt. For more intricate designs, the illustrations are colour-coded to show the first, second or further passes. A simple quilt pattern is included for a 50" x 50" quilting using 8" blocks and a pieced border. For each block and section, several versions of designs are shown using the techniques learned in the book. By combining the motifs, there are limitless possibilities.-- "The Canadian Quilter"