I have started to record some basic shapes for you to practice as skills for your free motion toolbox. On May 1 the Blog Hop is starting for The Ultimate Guide for machine Piecing and I am part of it. You can read more about the details here. I thought as a lead up to the big kick off we could talk about go to stitches that you may want to practice before May. Switchbacks are a shape of gently wiggling back and forth . It has skills of quilting between lines, moving from left to right and turning a border. You can see these skills in the video. The videos are also on my You Tube channel for reference!

Ok, this video is sideways. However you can see how I made curls and ribbon candy. The ribbon candy is a switchback with more curve and flourish to it. Curls are like a quilters thumbprint. No two people will make them the same but the basic shape is the basis for many free motion quilting stitches.

And lastly is the straight line. Long armers can do horizontal line easily with a channel lock as shown. Vertical lines are more tricky and you can use a ruler, a future video, or my favorite way is to just eyeball it. Stay tuned, more indepth discussion of the book to come!

Vicki