Lessons

Lesson Info

Free Motion Sewing

Free motion sewing is for thread painting it's for um um free motion monogram ing free motion stippling and we've got a lot of samples here in the room that we can show you what that looks like before we start doing it and I need my pillow with the poppies on it and I need my I've got a couple of dresses over there just dropped my scissors let me get those um I want to show you what we're gonna try to do here so these are examples of thank you so these are examples of um free motion work so here um what we're going to do is we're going toe cover our feed dogs with the feed cover plate and put on this is our feed cover plate on earlier when we got started I told you I would talk about how to use this and this keeps the feed dogs from moving because when you're sowing the feed dogs are wood carry the fabric through the machine they come up, they make contact with the fabric, move the fabric through, drop down to get the next bite of the fabric and move it through and it just does that at...

a very fast speed to move your fabric through so you don't push your pulled fabric that the feed dogs do that for you, but when we're doing something like free motion work, you don't want the feed dogs competing with you because you're going to put a foot on that lets you be in control you're going to be moving the fabric it's all kind of free and and you're in complete control and so we we want to cover the feed dogs so there they're not competing with us so not only this time do we actually remove the foot we're going to remove the shank as well there's isis screw here on the side and we the only way to take this office to unscrew this and this is what the foot looks like it looks a little strange but it's got the same just like the shank has where it clips onto the side of the presser bar this one does to it just shape a little differently and this arm you want to make sure that this is resting on the needle clamp if you put this on and this is underneath here it won't so properly it won't even go so you want that over the top of that and then sorry if my hand is in the way I'll try to just keep out of the way so you can watch me just fiddle with it a little bit till it slips into place there we go and then put that screw back in and when you tighten this when the needle bar obviously it goes up and down with the needle when you so and so because that arm of this foot is resting on that you want to give this screw a little bit of it, tugged there with the screwdrivers so that that doesn't work itself loose while you're selling, and we're gonna be on a straight stitch, which is zero zero ok, and so now we're ready, except for covering our feet, dogs, so we'll cover over those like, so this has a definite top and bottom sides, so the hole is a little bit below center, so that's the way you want, you don't want to put it on like that that's upside down and there's the's, little prongs right here that fit into these two holes on the needle plates, so we'll just bring that around and snap that on, and we're all free to so now some other things that we did, we all start out with the stippling, but some other things that you can do are, um, cold thread painting and here's an example of address, we just saw something in a popular boutique that sort of inspired us, and we made our own sort of version of it, but these are actually just flowers that we cut out white fabric, and we applied to the base fabric, similar to like the heart applicator, and then set the machine for free motion sewing. And then you just move the fabric around and it's like drawing on these with the needle and thread. And I'll show you how to do that. Here's another example of free motion where we used a straight stitch and a zig zig on this dress. This is really neat, but thiss sort of lacey looking flower that's on here is really off. You look at it closely, it's really like a bridal netting like bridal illusion, like tool, cider, but it's a little finer, and we just cut out that shapes, put the fabric on here, and just drew around it with a zigzag stitch. And then in here this a straight stitch, and we just meandered back and forth and back and forth like this to create this center look. And then this is just sewing right on the white fabric itself with a zigzag stitch, all free motion. And we got this look at all. This is just all this detail you can do. And this is all just free motion sewing it's. So many amazing all the possibilities with free motion. Um this example here is my is a tote bag and here is where we actually drew on the fabric we just drew with a fabric marking pen you can get the's just basic fabric marking pen draw your design right on the fabric set your machine for a straighter zigzag just kind of depends I like to use both but this exact goes a little faster and here you can even see where we blended creds the's leaves we've got light green and dark green here in the flowers we've got dark pink light pink and centers you just it's like you're painting with thread and that's all done with your free motion foot so we'll do a little bit of that so you can see how that you already know how to set up the machine and I've got here my, um a piece of something that looks similar he'll take this down off of the table so you can see a little bitter and here is the example of a kind of a pillow in progress so to speak and you can see where we were working on this a little earlier and we'll just continue on do some work may be down here on this end so we've got our white thread on here we've got her white thread in the bobbin I might just actually turn my hand well to draw that bob and thread up even up above the um uh, plate so it's up above the machine. Great, and we're set for straight stitch, and then what happens here? See, like, normally, when I would put the presser foot down when they were sewing earlier, the foot would go down in press really hard on the fabric, but this is thiss lets me be free it's not pressing hard firm down on the fabric, so I'm free to move the fabric around as I wish, and so we're on straight stitch the stitch length doesn't really matter, because I'm moving the fabric, so you just turn the week just to get started. You might loosen your upper thread tension just a little bit, but as you, me, under this around, you determine where does so you determine what the stitch looks like by just moving this around, ok? And so you can see what I'm doing here is just kind of free, kind of easy maneuvering around, you know, meandering way. The best thing to do is a nice, moderate speed on the foot control while you do a moderate speed of moving the fabric around, I think when people have trouble with their free motion sewing is their sewing really slowly with the for control, and they're trying to move it too fast up here, and it bends and breaks needles, so if you keep a good speed on your controller on, then do a moderate speed on your movement with your hands, then you'll have the best looking stippling just meander around and, um, you can you can do it very densely, like have the stitches be really tight together for a really tight looking staple? Or you can have it be more open like this? The difference that it would be on your finished product project would be that something that stippled very open is a little more drapey and soft where something that stippled very tightly is a little denser, like maybe if you did like a belt or something and you wanted it nice and firm, you could step along that really tightly, and it would give it more stiffness. So it's really kind of dependent on your project and the look, I have another quilt here that I'll show you if I can just grab it down below here. This is another, a quilt that has the free motion technique, but rather than this stippling effect like we're doing here where it's just meandering this's meandering too but a little bit differently where we did it and more of ah, kind of ah stretched out sort of look and the thread contrasts a little bit but you make this look however you want I know I've even seen websites where they even have like diagrams that you can transfer to your fabric to follow along if you want it to look like a pattern I mean there's so many things you can do with it it's really, really beautiful and then one of the other projects that I have that I've done is this bridal pillow was done with free motion free motion stitching and way just didn't put any ring is in it today I have to do that but it's very three dimensional looking it's it's really very interesting and what all they did here this is all just done with free motion um I just went to the fabric store the craft store and got some in this case it was like a hydrangea and I started pulling it apart and I, um have this silky fabric and I took some of these flower petals and just press thumb so they were a little flat because they were a little spring in sort of cup a little bit and I just steamed him a little to flatten them down and then I sprinkled a bunch of them all over the base fabric and then lay the bridal illusion or tool or whatever you have there you khun contrast it or have it match and you put this together like a sandwich maybe a few pins in here but then what happens is you bring it to the machine and you start to staple around it rionda ring around the shapes like you just follow the shapes and just draw around the shapes like we were meandering here and then if you want for a real three d effect no in this case we just put a few on top in hand so a little beat in the center but you could lay some of those on the top and then just actually free motion around them to even attach them on the top in which you've got doesn't have to be a bridal pillow could be a pillow pillow but I mean it's it's a it's a beautiful way tio you stippling and do something really creative and kind of original looking and I could just imagine this in almost any color it's just beautiful so hopefully that's giving you a little inspiration but you know these were just like from the craft store and I just pull these off and just steam them and ready to go filing every bottle that is really really cool really need to explore so here's like that dress we had earlier and you will have to change to the blue thread to show you that one so let's do that we'll do here I'll just stand this one up that'll work too town and it comes up sure that goes in the take up lever, right? Thread the eye of that needle and we'll be ready to try our other little flowers here. So this kind of looks almost like it looks a little like messy, but that's kind of the look you're after here, it's a little organic looking and and that's okay it there's no right or wrong, no good or bad? It just is what it is and it's your just drawing with thread. So as you start sewing well, a few stitches, I like to usually stop for a moment and just get rid of that tail that I'm dragging around, so I don't drag it around and just keep sewing and it's all free on my speed on the controller you're like, oh, I think I want to go down there again and still that I think I'm done with that one. I think I'll go over to this one and you can just stop, put your needle down if you want to, just kind of adjust your fabric a little bit it's kind of like a little placeholder if you leave it down. And just continue on with your next, um, that's what's happening here? Is that what this kind of covering a little bit? So you are able to move this around manually? Don't be afraid of it. People are often very afraid of free motion work. Um, I think it's just basically takes a little practice to know how it feels and and and, um, just experiment on scraps, it doesn't have to be perfect. Have your thread, maybe match instead of contrast, if when you're first starting out, that might give you a little more confidence, but I find like, a faster speed and water it with my hands gives me the best consistency and the most control just don't be afraid of going into a center around and around and around and around and around, I mean, you just keep filling in until it looks the way you until you're happy it's very simple to dio and then yes, and fun, it gets addicting, but the thing is, I think the biggest thing is the the good speed on the foot while you're moving the surround don't move this move this nice and consistently don't like kind of herky jerky it because that makes the needle wanna deflect, and then it will come down in bender break are there any other sort of top things that you see beginners using this machine mistakes that they make or any sort of other top tips that you might have common problems yeah um I think I'm just going to go ahead and remove thie or was going to show you the thread painting let me do that the I think when I think back to some of like my beginner classes I find a lot of folks just don't pay attention to the presser foot going up and down both with reading and with getting ready to so guiding the fabric they tend to just stare at the needle instead of really where the edge of the fabric is for the seam alone so I think just getting used to that this is your friend because it does make a difference when you're sewing, I think and then you know, really marrying the right threads with the fabric if you have for example, a needle that is a smaller needle like one of those size elevens and you tried to use a heavier thread probably won't even go through the eye and you're gonna have right and if you go kind of the other direction where you've got a really fine thread and you've got a heavy duty needle in there, you're probably going to have skipping stitches because it's just putting there's too much thread play so it just kind of taking time to learn to marry those two and that, I think, is the biggest thing I see. Thank you.