Thursday, May 8, 2014

Clam Shells and Binding

I like the look and feel of clam shell quilting and decided to give it a go. I wouldn't do a large area on a solid fabric until I was much better at it however I did squeeze some into my Mom's African banner quilt. It was surprisingly easy to do!

I started by drawing equidistant parallel lines on the area I wanted to fill with clam shells. I started at the dot on the lower left and made half circles that touch the line above. When I got to the far right I had to figure out how to get to the row above and I figured out two methods.


The first method is to backtrack on the last half circle until I got to the top where the dot is marked.


From there I made my half circles from the right to the left. The second method for preparing to stitch the row above is to stop at the mid-point of the half circle as indicated by the dot on the left.


From there I could just continue making the half circles.


Here are a couple of my practice sandwiches. Personally I found it easier to work with smaller clam shells rather than larger clam shells.



When I was making my Lazy Girl quilt I wrote about filling in the spaces with "doodling" and this would be a great bit of filler for that kind of quilting.



I'm stitching down the binding on Piccadilly to the Nines. I wrote a little tutorial about my easy method for joining the beginning and end of the binding. You will find it here. I like to cut my binding strips at 2 1/4" wide. I find that 2 1/2" is just a little too much whereas 2 1/4" is just perfect and the binding is nicely filled with the edge of the quilt.


I love a nice neat bound corner.  One down, three to go!


Until I post again, happy sewing!
Karen H

8 comments:

  1. Your quilting looks beautiful! I've not conquered FMQ yet, but someday..... :O)

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  2. love your little clam shells-thanks for the tutorial-I am keeping notes-lol

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  3. I have just been thinking of trying some clamshells free motion on my new machine. Isn't it funny how you always find someone else on the same wavelength? I think I will have to mark mine, though, or they will get away from me!

    Your figure 8's look great in the border! Another good idea to remember. :)

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  4. You must work like lightning! I can't believe how much you get done. I'm dipping my toe into machine quilting -- thank you for these tips.

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  5. well done on working out the clam shells, It is an effective filler and adds interest to the Mc Tavishing, which i think can be a bit monotonous in large areas and looks great broken up with other textures

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  6. Love your quilting....thanks for the tutorial.

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  7. Nice job on the mini clamshells. They are adorable!

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  8. Your binding is just so neat and crisp. I'll be checking out the tutorial. I love the look of the clamshells. They would make a great filler. I'll have to take some time and play with them.

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