I am a doodler. My desk calendars, old envelopes, scraps of paper, even magazine pages are great places to doodle. Free motion quilting is a form of doodling. Instead of creating shapes or lines with pen and paper a needle and thread are used.

I recently made this quilt.

In the border of the quilt I wanted to stitch the shape of a house. In order to do so I had to figure out how to convert my idea into stitches. The stitches would need to be produced through free-motion quilting. Free-motion quilting is applying designs to fabric through one continuous motion.

The first step was to put my design down on paper. I did this through doodling. After trying out various options I was able to develop one that worked.

Here’s what I produced.

Using my conventional sewing machine I was then able to transfer what I had learned into stitches. Here’s how it looked.

As you can see the houses do not all look the same. They are different because I wanted them to have an earthy appearance, to look haphazard.

I am so thrilled that I was able to successfully create the house image through stitching. Once I have finished my Art Quilt # 26: Blue Condo you will be able to see how the new pattern looked.

Do you doodle? Why?