Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Pebbles

Tutorial? Maybe you all didn't read my post closely where I said this was the first time I'd used them in a quilt!

I've read several books that show how to quilt these and this is what works for me. They are surprisingly forgiving and I think it's because you quilt around the circles 2-3 times.

I start in a corner of the space I want to fill, I usually go around my circles 2 - 2.5 times so I end up where I want to make my next circle - Fig 1.

I continue to make circles, filling the space and trying to vary the size of the circles. I don't want them all the same size - Fig 2.

Here's the part that threw me - as you make the circles, you end up with odd shaped spaces between them - Fig 2, highlighted areas. I found that if you just put a circle in that space even though it's odd shaped it works. See the second photo where I've filled in the space. Of course, you do these as you come to them - I only left them in my example so you can see them occurring.

Fig 3 shows the space filled with pebbles. My sewn examples look just like these circles, I'm not usually exactly on the line when I'm sewing around them.

I did match my thread to my fabric. You can see the sew examples here or here. Click on the drawings below to see an enlarged view.



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Mary, I just found an awesome tutorial on you-tube by Sharon Schamber demonstrating these and other fillers, feathers etc., was very inspirational as I am a beginer in the longarm department.

Anonymous said...

Thanks!! Loved the Schamber videos, too. I will have to try pebbling very soon!

Judy said...

I used them a few times in hubby's coffee quilt and did them the same way...I just guessed and it all worked out! Good job!

Helen in the UK said...

I love the look of these pebbles in quilting - haven't have the courage to try them yet! Thanks for the tutorial :)