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Lesson Info

Free Motion

Let me show you let's, go on, do some free motion work, so free motion as like free motion quilting, free motion, monogram ing free motion thread painting, and I get rid of one of these threads and I'm back to single needle sewing probably just take that out and re threat it because I want to make sure when I removed the other one that didn't move around inside my attention area here and get misplaced from pulling that other threat out. So here we are all threaded up and now to set up for free motions sewing, I'm gonna go back to straight stitch with that stitch zero zero just a straight stitch and thiss time I'm going to show you a few examples of of free motion work before we go ahead and do some so your machine comes with its own style of free motion foot. I'll put that on in just a moment, and we also need to cover the feed dogs. So these air the two items that you will need these are in your tray with your machine and so let's, just look at a little inspiration first, before we st...

art that, and I will need some of those I will need that pillow that's on the sofa and some of those those dresses that we had over on the table over there. Yeah, somebody in the chat rooms are on the q directly said if you have time I would love to see you demo how to stitch free hand I want to free hand my own designs and need to be able to go up and down in sideways I've waited to buy this machine until this class make sure that it could do what I needed it to do before purchasing ok? Well, we're going to do that right now this is where we are so I'll just show I mean the sky is the limit, right? But I mean just to give you some visuals for the different type rates of free motion work probably the most popular is this free motion we call it stippled stitching this meandering kind of free, meandering stitch and I'm going to demonstrate that for you on a piece I have here but we used a quarter inch seem to put these pieces together and then piece of batting underneath it and then we free motion stitch and then assembled the pillow uh to finish so I'll show you how to do that that's the most common here's another example of where we used that stippled stitching but these were just a couple of basic placemats and then we used blind hem, stitch, multi zigzag and straight stitch to just embellishing the border, but then we made napkin rings with some of the leftovers and free motion stitched on those with a contrast ing thread for a completely different look for the napkin rings it's just amazing I mean there's you can just put it anywhere you want um the another thing you can do here is our address I'll show you how to do this. I've got a little step out of this I can demonstrate this for you this is kind of like just drawing with a needle and thread um kind of like how the heart was on the aqua fabric earlier that red dotted heart was applied to the base fabric that's what we did here is just cut out some flower shapes here's some tonal ones and here is some contrast ones we applied them to the base fabric and I'm going to show you that I started one earlier today, but when we're just going to fill in with stitches, I'll do that for you we did a little belt to go around it with this flowers in a little bit smaller size so that's an example of the thread free motion stitching here is another dress we did completely different technique, but we have this white base fabric and we laid aid black bridal illusion are black illusion it's a little bit finer gauge of holes it's kind of like tool but tool the holes are a little more open this's illusion but it's all kind of essentially the same is that nylon with holes in it kind of fabric and laid that over here we'll zigzag free motion around here and first of this way first straight stitched it trimmed up to it and then zigzag free motion around it to finish and capture the raw edge and then use the straight stitch to go in and out. Just freehand to feel in these centers. And then these were the zigzag just free you can use your marker pen to drawn here, so you're not having to, like, just kind of wildly do that you can draw your guidelines for yourself there, but this looks like lacey in almost like a lace insertion of some kind and it's really just illusion and black thread and here's um, a bridal pillow that I did one time. Uh, the I'm gonna have to put some rings on here, though, so it really looks like a bridal pillow over there's, a little bow in the center and what this really is this's kind of fun. This might this. Well, this might be a lot of fun for you to try, but this is, um, here's my step, but what don't here, I have this base fabric and some tool and I just was at the craft store and I got thes plastic flowers or the what silk flowers on the plastic stands I should say and you just pull these off and then a tw the ironing board just give him a little steam so they sort of flatten out a little bit and then I just sprinkle them on here however I want um this is more a more tonal look but maybe you have white fabric and you want to put purple flowers on it? I did a table runner like this one time too was beautiful with put a vase sitting on it with flowers it was really pretty this could be a little girl's skirt for a flower girl dress. I mean I mean there's going to be it could be a pillow pillow, not just the bridal pillow, eh? So what we did is after we put all of our pieces under here and they can overlap or not touch you can make it is denser, open as you want. Then what I did was just with that free motion stitching just kind of trace around the outline of the pedals and just meander around to capture these all in here and then when we were done, you can either attach them like we did on this one with a bead or you could just free motion around in the centre to attach them so the whole thing is by machine and you've created this base fabric from which you can do whatever you want the finished item to be, um, the other type of free motion work, of course, you can use it for, um mon fri motion monogram ing to, but here is an example of a tote bag that I have, and this is where we did thread painting and essentially what thread painting is that you can set your machine for straight stitchers, eggs, egg and you're just moving the fabric freely, but what will help you is here's one I started a little earlier, and I'll just keep working on it, but you use that marking pen like we were talking earlier about fabric markers, and I'll just trim these loose threads that doesn't look so bad, but you'll come in here and just free motion back and forth, and you're just kind of coloring in between the lines with thread and so I'll demonstrate this one and the stippling and the drawing on this one here to show you how that works. Ok, so let's get started. Um, let's see, I need to put the presser foot on that's what's next so let's remove normally are presser feet, even snapping them on and snapping them off, but in the case of this one, we actually have this shank that has to go through this foot has its own whole shank, so this screw has to become undone, so we can remove this one and replace it with this one. So just bear with me a moment while I do that, my hand might be in the way. So sorry about that. And you want to make sure that this little piece right here is resting above the needle clamp? You don't want this to be underneath this or it won't. So so you want that to be writing over the top as you set this in place and then tighten up that screw this moves up and down, too, with the, um ah, the needle clamps. So you want to, um, give this a little tweak with the screwdriver so that's on there really securely you don't want that working itself loose while you're stitching? And then the other thing we need to do is cover those feed dogs so that they're not drawing the fabric through because we're going to be just going free and we want to so wherever we want to, so we don't want to be having the feed dogs fighting us, so we'll snap that back into place and I'm going to just draw my needle thread back up to her, but the bomb and threat up back up to the top, okay? Get a hold of it there so it's on the top side of the aisle got threat everywhere here threads are too long wait go wonderful. Okay no, um my stippling what I would do for that I guess I don't have my piece handy, but I can show you on something like this if this was like our quilt and we want to free motion it's kind of like what we did on that big pillow I show you what you're going to do is you're going to put him a good amount of speed on your foot controller as you manually guide this around and in a meandering motion um so let me go ahead and do that, then I'll show you kind of what people sometimes tend to do incorrectly that gives you not the result you want, so we're going to put the presser foot lifter is down, but what you notice is that this still moves freely normally when you put the presser foot down when you get ready to so the foot comes in contact with the fabric to feed it along. But this is now you are in control and you can maneuver this around so you're in charge now so let's just do a little bit of that, so we'll put the presser foot is down, drop the needle down in the fabric and we'll just begin to stitch apps that foot control is getting away from me there we go way over on straight stitch now stop to just trim this thread so I'm not dragging it around with the foot did you see what I've got here? I'm going in nice speed on the controller and I'm not herky jerky ing this around and you might want to even use that automatic excuse me the programmable needle up down because then when you stop to reposition your fabric if you wanted to pivot this to come over and another area the needle will stop in the down position and hold your place so you don't drift that's a really night another nice feature that programmable needle up down but you can you can do this really close together your stitches really tight like this so there's not a lot of space in between the stippling or you can meander and have it be very open it really depends on the look you want what you'll find is if you're doing this and stitches are really dense, you're finished fabric will be more firm then when it's more open the finished fabric so to speak will be have a little more dre penis to it so it really again just depends if you were maybe free motioning a belt you might like that nice and firm where quote you might want it with subtle softer it really again just depends but what I see where see people make the most mistakes with this is they tend to go there a little nervous about it and so you step really slowly on the foot controller and then you're trying to move the top fabric too fast so you end up without these nice rounded edges like you get on this meandering it it gets kind of jerky looking and if you pull it too fast one direction or another it'll actually deflect the needle on the needle will come down at an angle and come down and so if you're breaking needles when you're free motioning you're just moving your fabric too fast for how much speed you're giving it at the foot controller so you need to just practice going a little faster with their steam on the foot controller with a moderate movement on the topside and that should give you some better success like so so that's your kind of meandering you're free motion now we'll try some of that just like we did with the flowers there and I will think I have actually have one that's done in white toe have a white one here I can no, I guess I don't I'll switch to the blue then so we can do it on this blue so I'm going to change my upper thread to a, um blue color like this put our threat on here down get that take up lever up there so I can make sure the thread goes in I always double check it to make sure it went in and now we'll just continue with this flower over here and again you can see this is very sort of organic looking presser foot is down but the foot isn't touching if you want you can just put that needle down as you get started and then just start stitching and I'm going to stop to trim this so I don't like I say before drag it around and uh and just start drawing nice speed with your foot control moderate speed with your hands just go ever go wherever you want in a case like this it looks kind of cool to just have a soda all over it's part of the look of it maybe I want to be a little more filled in when you come to the center you just go around and around and around in your middle from this around and come over this way it's really whatever you want it to be but it's really actually it's really fun once you kind of break from your fear of the fact that you're controlling it, you'll really enjoy doing that thread can contrast it could be the same color for a tonal look you can do this with ray on thread for to be shiny and that's how you do the kind of the thread drawing I don't know what the term is for that exactly, but the drawing with the threat on the application so the last one that I want to show you that is the thread painting where we actually had what we did like on the tote bag and I'm going to switch two we did use a pink colored thread there, so let me switch to approach to that and we'll start filling in one of these other petals over here it's in the take up lever good all right, good to go. All right, so then put our peace under here. You definitely want to use a stabilizer on the back side of this to to help this not to pucker use a nice tearaway stabilizer if it's something more of ah, something that might come in contact with your skin, you might use one of those mesh stabilizers, but in the case of this, like a tote bag using a tear away is just fine because that will get completely removed. And so now we'll put her needle down, but we're still going free, you see, because we're in control still I'm gonna put that needle down and we'll start filling in or the rest of well, I'll start filling and over here and start a new one cause I think this isn't even a different color thread so I started out by drawing the outline around here it's kind of like coloring in between the lines, but we'll go ahead and so after a couple stitches, I'm going to just trim this too again not be dragging it around and you just start stitching used back and forth back and forth you're just feeling it in if you missed a spot, you just go back over and over it again and pick it up way it's just that easy way did here as you can see he is we filled in with e this was ray on thread and then we probably but we filled it in don't know about so far but with the next layer of threat because we we use the threads to kind of blend them together like this to give it more of a realistic look here even in the leaves we have two colors of green we did the main part first with the lighter green and then went back over it just back and forth a little bit to give it some sort of what you call those like but like the veins of the leaf tio give it a little more dimension and that's that's all there is to it you just meandering back and forth this is a little more controlled you're in a smaller area going back and forth you just take a deep breath but just have a good speed on your controller and moderate speed here don't don't jerk it around real fast and you'll the more you practice it you get better and better at it but that's essentially how it works okay, so maybe one last foot I'll show you it's one that's an optional foot for your machine but this is a an open toe foot and this one's really nice for when you want to maybe add trims to the top of fabric for surface embellishments so here for example, this christmas stocking if you wanted to say, um add these ribbons to the topside and you want to stitch them down you could use your satin foot but what I like about an open toe foot is they're all the area in front of my needle is is not covered, so I have a really clear view of what's going on in front of my needle and that can be helpful when you do things like attaching ribbons and in this case we used a triple zigzag stitch to do that um or you want to put rick rack on a project here you would lay that down and place your open toe foot over the rick rack and again you can see sometimes the satin foot even though there's that group these both have that groove or tunnel a little bit on the backs side and they're really great for letting that dense material passed through in this case, it would be the trim itself, but I like that I theseventy foot tends to cover that for me. Where here it's a clear, unobstructed view of what I'm stitching, and you can just use a straight stitch or a zigzag to attach those trims. I think since we're short on time, I don't know that I'll do that because I think you've got the idea there, but you could use a straight stitch green thread. You could use a zigzag and you could use clear thread whatever you want to do there there's another foot that's optional for your machine that you might like and that's your courting foot and the courting foot. Ah, let's. See if I've got some examples over here. The courting foot is actually how we created these napkin rings thiss looks like it has court it it it is cord stitched in here and we used a metallic thread to attach them. Um a wonderful look for holidays coming up but what you do, this foot has, um three little, um channels on it. One is for there's, a left center and right. And you would snap your court in here like so and on ly thing you want to watch is that when you pull the cord it should absolutely just move free as a bird through there you shouldn't have to like pull that through if it's rubbing it all it's not going to seoul properly so you could put one and then you put the second one and again that'll move freely because it's just like the other one and then you'll have your third one and snap that in into that third slot so the back part of the court goes under the foot and the top part goes in that little slots and I have three chords here so let me I'll just give that a quick try so let me switch back to my regular shank I'll give it a go I'll give it a try so we got speed so it yes so we're going to remove that free motion foot I want to stitch that cord onto my fabric and three parallel rows like that so here's my regular showing me remove the need is darning plate the feed dawg cover plate put this shank back on for normal sewing and just give that a little tweak with my screwdriver and we'll snap on recording foot oh let me before I do that let me just threat it with something that's gonna look pretty with it so why don't we try this gold gold thread that'll that'll work. Snap got in. We'll re thread really fast. My take up liver press. Your foot is up okay, because I missed needle is threaded. So now I'm going to put this silk fabric when he was a little bit of stabilizer to as I do this, my silk fabric and here's, my courting foot that I've prepared with the cords and will snap that on. And now what you can do is you can use a variety of stitches with this one that I love with this foot is that number fifty eight. It was the same one that was on that black and white pillow that we looked like looked at earlier. But it gives me this domino sort of effect over these cords and it looks wonderful. You can have your thread match your cord. You can have your thread. Contrast your cord. You really need to experiment with it. But it's, it just gives you wonderful stitching. I'll just apply this right now with the multi stitch cigs egg, which is number six and, um go ahead and so open it up because it's still on my setting from when we did darning on the genes. So they opened it up a little bit, and you'll see it a little more in action here, but those three little cords get separated automatically by those tunnels on the foot. This sort of separate them forming right before they go into the stitching area, so I don't have to worry about it too much, and the effect when you're done is you've added these cords, they're perfectly level with a beautiful stitch. What we did here in the case of this napkin ring, the cords matched the color of the base fabric a little more, but we went we did the next role right next to it, and right next to it right next to it, and we used a metallic thread with a shorter stitch length to attach them, and we got this wonderful, wonderful texture so it's just amazing like that. What? The versatility that presser feet give you your sewing machine with the stitches you have I mean, you'll just be busy, busy, busy with all the ideas that will, you know, will come to you as you start looking around at store bought items and ready to wear and even ideas of your own sky is the limit, so