Day 282 - Echo Maze

Wow! I was pleasantly surprised by the reaction to yesterday's post about dropping feed dogs. Maybe I should rant more often!

Today I'm looking back to a very early design from the project, Brain Coral, and wondering if we can make a variation of it with straight lines and sharp angles. It turns out we can! Here's Echo Maze:

I don't know why it's taken me so long to come up with this easy variation! Brain Coral was inspired by Stippling. I wanted to see what would happen if I created an Echoing Design with a wiggly Stippling shape.

Then I created Circuit Board, which is essentially Stippling with straight lines and sharp angles. Now for Echo Maze I've just taken Circuit Board and echoed it.

Now if you totally didn't understand a thing I just wrote, please raise your hand! I realize that I really haven't done a good job of teaching the difference between each design category, where each design set will work best in a quilt, and what makes each similar / different.

It all works great in my head, but if you can't understand it, what good is it? So I'm hoping to get a few new videos shot this week explaining more about each design set.

Now let's learn how to stitch Echo Maze:

Click Here if the Video Does Not Appear

Difficulty Level - Beginner / Intermediate. This is surprisingly easy to quilt! Start with a simple straight lined shape, like the outline to the letter "L" or "E" then travel stitch a short distance away and echo this shape multiple times.

As I said in the video, how many echoes you use can change the texture and appearance of this design. Try playing with echoing some shapes 2 times, and other 5 to 10 times to see what I mean!

Filler Design Type - Echoing. This design set will literally work anywhere in your quilt. If you need to quilt blocks, around appliques, fill borders, or stitch your sashing, these designs will work great.

Directional Texture - No Direction. Designs with straight lines and sharp angles tend to look like a flat stone walkway - no flowing movement, but still a beautiful, interesting design nonetheless.

Suggestions for Use - This design reminds me of the hardwired circuitry of a robot,but maybe that's just because James can't go a day without talking, building, destroying, and rebuilding a host of robots with blocks and Legos.

How about a robot quilt? This fun, funky design would look great stitched around robot appliques, or in the sashing and borders.

Back of Echo Maze

Feel free to use this free motion quilting design in your quilts

and send in a picture to show it off!

Let's go Quilt!

Leah Day

Click Here to find the tools and supplies you need for

beautiful free motion quilting