Dogwood Blossoms is a bold, modern traditional quilting design and is easily my “go to” when I want a quit to work up quickly or show off some fun fat quarters. I also love that it’s perfect for combining free motion quilting with walking foot quilting or ruler work quilting, creating a cool effect!

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The big flowers of Dogwood Blossoms provide an amazing opportunity for color and fabric contrast, but the way they form a clear foreground and background also provides a unique quilting opportunity. Let’s take a look at a few different quilting plans to consider, and spend some particular time on the way this quilt is an excellent chance to practice a bit of ruler work or walking foot quilting.

(Curious about choosing fabrics for a two color quilt like this one? Check out my blog post here)

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All Over Quilting Plan

Every quilt can, of course, be quilted with an all over design. While I personally tend to lean toward more complicated opportunities, I think there’s a couple of designs that would look quite lovely over these big ol’ flower blocks and really let the fabric choices shine:

• Some walking foot lines- there’s nothing like simplicity

• A walking foot grid- whether straight or on the diagonal, simple walking foot lines would drive home that this is a very modern quilt. Choose a thread that blends across blocks to enjoy the modern texture of a grid, but keep the focus on color and fabric choices

• A FMQ meander or loopy meander- as with the other two all over designs I’ve mentioned, this would quilt up fast, fast, fast, which is an especially excellent option if you are wanting to FMQ your first quilt or finish this quilt in a weekend to give as a gift. Talk about a quick stash buster!

• Or, for a more textured option, a feather meander or McTavishing or riff quilting (shown above) will work up well and look amazing!

A Custom Plan

As I mentioned above, I’m always a bit drawn to the more custom quilting strategy. I love the way there’s an obvious background and foreground of this quilt, and that doing something complicated in the background won’t easily distract from the pieced flowers. Therefore, on several of the Dogwood Blossoms quilts I’ve quilted so far, I’ve chosen to use simple ruler work to add “details” to the flower, but then chosen much heavier quilting for the background.

I love to quilt the flower is by using a ruler (or walking foot) to create a grid in the center of the flower to give a distinctive texture, then using gentle curves to create details in each petal. For fun free motion quilting practice, I riff quilt quilt the background, playing with feathers and paisleys and swirls. For a more modern look, ruler guided switchbacks add a lot of texture to the background with a very simple quilting motif.

A Quick Look at Ruler Work

To get started with free motion quilting, I recommend the Confident FMQ Workbook, but let’s take a look at how to do this more linear quilting too:

If you are, instead, working with a ruler on a domestic machine, check out this post to get started.

Walking Foot Quilting

If you’re working on a sewing machine that is more conducive to walking foot quilting, or you’re just not interested in the new challenge of ruler work yet, you can do this same cross hatching and the petal shapes with walking foot, too. In this case, I recommend using a Hera marker or some chalk to mark the lines with a ruler or template before quilting. Take it nice and slow to get beautiful, even stitches as you walk across your quilt.

Riff Quilting

As I mentioned above, to me, the negative space seemed like a perfect opportunity to play. While I like to have a plan for my quilts, my plans often include improv, especially in background spaces. I did some different feathers, McTavishing, swirls, etc, and just let myself "cut loose" and try things. If you have never done this on a quilt, I strongly recommend it. It takes the pressure off of your quilting and keeps things interesting! Dogwood Blossoms is a perfect opportunity for this kind of playtime, because it is a whimsical quilt to begin with, and if you use a print for your background, little imperfections won't show up-- you'll just have gorgeous quilting texture. 

All in all, Dogwood Blossoms is a great pattern for showing off fat quarters and practicing your quilting skills. Plus, it makes a great gift!

Resources

• PATTERN: Get the Dogwood Blossom Pattern HERE

• FREEBIE: Confident FMQ Workbook and Confident Quilting Plan Workbook HERE

• Love the lil’ bee block, too? It’s from Lori Holt’s Scrappiness is Happiness book

• Ready to start free motion quilting or take your skills to the next level? Get on the waiting list for Free Motion Quilting Academy

• Curious about quilting with rulers? Join the waiting list for Ruler Quilting Academy

• SHOP: fabric & notions HERE

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