April 2012 Don Linn's stencil technique

This is my third attempt using a tulle stencil to transfer a design onto the quilt sandwich.  My first and second quilted designs are posted on my blog.  Instead of an embroidery hoop I made a permanent frame using stationary card board.  I copied Diane at Pine Point Designs who used a card board from a cereal box.

 I printed the butterfly from a colouring webpage, then modified the printed copy slightly to have more continuous lines.

Traced the butterfly onto the tulle using a black permanent sharpie marker.

Ironed the tulle on low heat to set the permanent marker.

Traced the butterfly onto the quilt sandwich using a Sewline cermanic green pencil.

The design transfers easily through the tulle.  I used my Bernina 930 Record sewing machine.

The first picture below is the backside.

This is the front side, the butterfly with the turquoise blue middle on a flower was my second attempt using Don Linn's tulle stencil technique.

I'm not a big fan of marking the quilt top. After a far amount of erasing this is my butterfly, I can still see bits of green pencil in the orange thread.  Getting the marks off the quilt is messy.

 Backside.

 Front side.

This is the tulle stencil.  As you can see, visibility is excellent.  I don't enjoy the chore of removing the markings afterwards.  My preferred method of fmq is to practice the design a gazzillion times on paper then sew it free hand on my fabric.

When I need a precise design,  I'll sew a traced the design onto parchment paper with no thread in the needle.  Then I pin the parchment paper to the quilt and follow the needle punched lines to stitch out the design.  This works quite well, except again I find removing the little bits of parchment paper caught in the stitches a pain you know where.  Perhaps a chalk pumice would work better to mark the quilt top, only I think the chalk would come off too easily. How do you mark your quilt designs?  Is there an easier way to get the marks off?

Happy stitching all!