Working with Shape by Shape by Angela Walters

I'm just about ready to bind my Wonky Fish baby quilt (really gotta come up with a better name than that) which is good because the baby shower is fast approaching. But I thought I would share a bit of the quilting process with you.

I ordered two Angela Walters books recently. Free Motion Quilting and Shape by Shape.  I had borrowed them from my BQF Vicki at Orchid Owl Quilts and quickly decided I needed to own them. Two days later they were at my front door. (Thank you Amazon Prime.) They are both fantastic books and well worth buying.  I think the Shape by Shape book is my favorite so far.

I love that she breaks this book down into squares, circles, triangles, borders and negative space.  That format makes it a great reference when you are staring at a quilt you don't know how to quilt.

Oh, that reminds me. If you are a Modern Quilt Guild member, Angela did a great webinar on deciding how to quilt your quilt. You should go to the MQG website and check it out.

So in quilting my Goldfish quilt, I tried out some of her designs.  For example:

I tried this border design for a serpentine line for one of my orange borders.

Honestly, it can use some improvement. I would like my lines to be a bit more uniform. I need to practice this one some more. But the one I chose for the inner orange borders -

this Dot -to -Dot border, which had fabulous instructions -

I thought turned out pretty well.  It gave that section a cool upholstered feel like it just needed orange buttons on the points. I used a double layer of batting with this quilt. The very last of my Hobbs 70/30 blend. I'm glad I did the double layer because it made these diamonds puff up nicely.

I had tried her signature design on my owl pouches from a few posts ago. I decided to use it again on the main section of the goldfish quilt.

This is the back of the owl pouch fabric on top and the back of the goldfish quilt on the bottom.

I used a much thinner thread this time which made the quilting blend beautifully. I think I executed it better this time. Something to do with muscle memory I think. As you practice, your hands get better and doing what your brain is asking them to. Does that make sense?

I love how it looks like moving water currents.  I can see why she likes to use this design so often.
I'll get the binding on and put up some completed pics soon. Hopefully this week.

But in the meantime, I definitely recommend this book. The diagrams are fantastic and easy to follow. She has tips for making it work and all kinds of variations on each design in each section. I really want to get better at my Free Motion Quilting and I think her books are going to be great tools to do so.

Thanks for visiting my blog. Have a quilty day!

Linking with Free Motion Maveriks at lizzielenard-vintagesewing.blogspot.co.uk