12 Days of Christmas in July - Free Motion Quilted Ornaments

Welcome to my stop on the 12 Days of Christmas in July blog hop, hosted by Sarah of Confessions of a Fabric Addict! Sarah has put a lot of work into this hop, including a quilt-a-long on her blog and even a giveaway every day, so be sure to head over there to get in on all the good stuff.

If this is your first time here at Devoted Quilter, it's great to have you. If you like what you see, be sure to sign up for my newsletter, The Bulletin. When you do, you'll get my free Wind Farm quilt pattern (exclusive to subscribers) along with a fun monthly email from me.

I've been planning the ornaments I wanted to make for this hop for months, though I only finally got to make them a couple of days ago (on the hottest day we've had yet, no less!). In fact, I had hoped to use this hop as the perfect opportunity to get all the ornaments I plan to give out for Christmas made well in advance. Instead, I've made...three. 😒 But at least I'm three ahead, right?

I used the same basic method as I used last fall for my Free Motion Quilted Ornaments, but this time around I made them smaller and tried something different with the quilting. I started by printing out the word JOY and tracing the letters onto freezer paper. They look deceptively large in this close-up, lol.

Then I cut the letters out and used my iron to stick them to a piece of solid red fabric.

I used my Hera marker to trace around a credit card to give me the outline of the ornament. Then I layered with batting and backing, added the ribbon and started quilting 😊 Don't you love when you can get to the quilting stage so quickly?

I outlined the outer edge of the ornament first, then micro stippled my way in to the J. I outlined the letters and filled in the rest with more micro stippling. I love how it looks!

I really like the way the letters pop against the micro stippling. And I love the classic look of the red and white, especially against the green of the tree.

I have to admit, though, the freezer paper wasn't great for the letters. I'm guessing it's because the letters were so small that as I stitched around them they were lifting off the fabric. I'll have to think about other options for transferring the letters to the fabric. Maybe just tracing with a disappearing marker would work. Do you have a favourite disappearing marker?

The freezer paper worked better for my other two designs, both of which were bigger than the letters.

First up, a heart. I switched to white fabric and red thread for this one. I like it, but I definitely want to try one on red fabric with the white thread.

And then a star. I want to make more of these on yellow fabric, but I haven't decided what colour thread I'd want to use. I don't know if white would have enough contrast. I'll probably have to give it a try to find out.

I didn't make the stippling as small on these two and I think they'd look better with smaller quilting. My stippling tends to be a bit messy, but it's less noticeable when there's more of it, lol. Something to keep in mind when I get around to making the rest of the ornaments for Christmas.

If you'd like to try your hand at free motion quilted ornaments, be sure to check out my original tutorial for all the how-to. And if you'd like to see more projects like this, don't forget to sign up for The Bulletin.

Head over to visit Sarah for the quilt-a-long and info on the giveaway. Plus be sure to visit the other bloggers sharing today.

Saturday, July 22nd

Devoted Quilter (that's me!)

Kathy's Kwilts and More

All Points of the Compass

Thanks for stopping by and Merry Christmas in July!