Pebble Quilting

Hi, my name is Michelle, and I blog about sewing and quilting at CityHouseStudio.

I thought I would share one of my most recent FMQ adventures.

I fell in love with this style of pebble quilting when I saw this pillow.

These quilts were pieced with leftover solids from the Bottled Rainbows quilt

 I've been (slowly) working on.

When I saw this quilt on flickr, I had to try pebble quilting for myself!

I think it's interesting to combine quilting styles too --

straight line and pebble quilting make these quilts so much more interesting!

Twin Doll Quilts

Close up of pebble quilting

I would say that for me, pebble quilting is actually a little be easier than just free motion stippling.  When I first started out, I would actually draw circles on my fabric (free motion doodling, I guess!--with a disappearing ink pen), and then follow these circles as I quilted.  But once I got the hang of it, I stopped drawing.  Pebble quilting uses A TON of thread, so have lots of bobbins ready.  It's really forgiving, though -- from afar it looks so cool, and if your stitch length isn't even, it doesn't really matter because you go over the same circle two to three times (not just once!) to get this sort of look.  Before I quilted these twin quilts, I practiced a lot on 20 inch squares of fabric, which I then turned into pillows!

For FMQ, I use my Juki TL-98Q (love, love, love this machine - it makes FMQ so easy), quilting gloves, and a Supreme Slider (find it here: www.freemotionslider.com).

Happy pebble quilting!