Sometimes the hardest thing about free-motion quilting is simply getting started.

This week I’m quilting my Candy Hearts Baskets from February 2008. After quilting in the ditch over the seam lines with invisible thread I free-motioned the borders before tackling the appliqued blocks. Heart vines seemed appropriate for this heart-themed quilt so that’s what I went with, plus a twisting ribbon in the narrow vertical yellow border as well as to fill the extra space in the wider horizontal yellow border. I enhanced the quilted lines at right to give you a better idea of what it looks like.

Here’s what I learned:

• Matching cotton thread on the front with invisible thread on the back helps reduce stress about making mistakes. While quilting, you can see just enough of what you’re doing, but when you take it out from under the machine and stand back, the imperfections fade into the background and it looks great! Similar to hiding the stitches on the back with a busy print.

• Borders and strippy quilts are a great place to practice free-motion quilting. You don’t need to worry about a wide open expanse to quilt, quilting yourself into a corner, or coordinating your stitches with the design in the piecing or applique. Just focus on one row at a time, getting from one end of the quilt to the other.

The heart vine takes just one pass across the quilt: dip down, stitch the heart, back up again, and then down for the next heart.

The twisting ribbon takes two passes of a simple wavy line. On the second line, dip down where the first line goes up and go up where the first line dips down.

• Don’t worry if the motifs don’t come out all exactly the same. Let them be their own lively selves and dance across your rows to their own rhythm.

In case you’re curious, I decided to echo-quilt around the baskets with yellow-orange-red variegated thread. It’s coming along quite nicely. =(^_^)= This quilt will soon be ready for binding and beading.