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"If you're having fun while you're quilting, your joy will be apparent in your quilts." That encouraging advice is from today's guest, Lori Kennedy, who is with us again for the second episode of learning the basics of free-motion quilting. It's good to have you back for the second show. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. And I do agree that there's no need to be-- look for perfection in your quilting. Have fun, and your quilts will be fun. You'll see what I mean as I demonstrate the basic free-motion leaf motif. It's a versatile motif that adds a touch of class to any quilting project, yet there's room to personalize the stitches. "Free-Motion Machine Quilting 1-2-3," that's what's coming up next on Sewing With Nancy.

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For the love of sewing. Madeira, specializing in embroidery, quilting, and special effect threads, because creativity is never black and white. Koala Studios, fine sewing furniture custom-built in America. Clover, making a difference in sewing, quilting, crafting, and needle arts for over 90 years. Fuller Brush Vacuums, dedicated to keeping homes clean. Amazing Designs and Klass Needles. The basic leaf design is ideal for borders or long rectangular shapes on quilts. And Lori has made a whole cloth showing several options of this leaf. But if you missed our first program, which you can always watch online at NancyZieman.com, you need to know the setup for your sewing machine. The thread, you need a normal weight, a 40-weight thread of rayon or a cotton thread, not a lightweight thread 'cause you want the stitches to show, but do put a lightweight thread in your bobbin. A needle size 90 or an 80, nothing smaller. And then you're going to lower the feed dogs. Each machine will be different, so check your owner's manual. All I have to do is push the button, and it shows me which thread to-- excuse me-- which foot to use, and the feed dogs, the little teeth in the bottom area, just drop it-- drop it out of place, allowing you to move the fabric underneath the presser foot without taking physical even stitches in a row. If you'd like to have the fabric be a little bit more smooth or to glide, you can put a silicone mat underneath, and that will help as you're driving and creating the designs. And, Lori, you are going to be working on some practice fabric. And we just have the-- like a quilt, a backing, batting, and the top layer. And for this purpose, we have three lines drawn 1/2" apart. Now, I'm done talking. We have the lines drawn with chalk. And you are gonna show this basic leaf design. Well, as you know, I always start by doodling. So I'm gonna show you that on a piece of paper. I have three lines drawn. And the size of the lines should be drawn about the-- whatever fits your border. So if that's a 3" border, you could make those bigger. And all we're gonna do is sweep to one side, come back and make a central line. So let's take that over to the sewing machine. And when I start with my sewing, I always have a pair of tweezers and snips with me. The tweezers help me grab those little threads. And we're gonna start with the needle down and needle back up to pop the bobbin thread. Now I'm gonna pull that bobbin thread out of the way and hold it as I begin stitching. For this motif, you start stitching on the center line. So we're gonna start there. We're gonna start on the center line and stitch on the center line a few stitches and then sweep to the side here. Now I'm gonna stop here a second with my needle in the down position. If your machine has that, that's a great feature to use. And now I'm ready to start sewing because I've snipped that thread and I've gotten it out of the way. And now I'm gonna round down and create the center of the leaf. Now, I can stop here a second, if I need to, and then begin the next leaf. I try not to stitch over any previous line of stitching. So I kind of leave that open so I can scoot out right there. Now here, we'll echo stitch the previous stitch. Come around and through. So you're kind of scooting through that little opening that you leave for yourself. Because you don't want a lot of thread buildup. And especially if you're using heavy thread, when you go over previous stitching... Sure. If it's heavy, it really does show up like a focal point that you don't want to see. So I'm gonna stop there a second. Whenever I want to move my hands, I stop sewing. I'm ready to begin again. Now, I also think it looks really nice to change up a leaf occasionally. Don't make them all the same, and that makes the design a little bit more interesting. So there, I leave... - Mm-hmm. The vein out. Maybe a couple of them out, and now go back to adding the vein. I'm gonna add a vein here. I'm gonna stop a second because I want to move my hands. And now this time, I'm gonna change it up a little bit more. I'm gonna sweep to the side, come around, and add a little spiral. And that adds just a whole different look. Notice the way Lori has her hands positioned, just gently holding the fabric. And you're not sewing that speedy. I'm... - Just taking it easy. I'm not a fast sewer. But just listening to your sewing machine can help you develop a good rhythm. While Lori is continuing to do the sewing, I want to show you on another practice sample that you could make this leaf large; you could make it small. Here is a small sashing or inner border. And notice that same technique with some of the veins stitched, some of them left open, has filled this area. What a beautiful-- beautiful stitch. If you used variegated thread, you'd have a lesser look, or a matching thread. However you'd like to incorporate this, try this basic leaf design on your next quilting project. Feathers are a classic free-motion quilting design, yet feathers by themselves are tricky to sew. Achieve a comparable look by learning Lori's streamlined technique of stitching feathered leaves. The tapered tips and scallops combine to create a unique look that's a breeze to stitch. Now, when I first saw this, I didn't think it was going to be a breeze to stitch, Lori. But whether they're stitched straight or they have an arc and they're curved, these feathered leaves are much easier to approach than a feathered free-motion stitch. And what a great approach you have. Well, again, you start with a simple... Mm-hmm. - A simple line. So we're gonna do that by doodling, and you start with a little curved line, and then we're gonna do scallops, but to give it the real look, the... that we like, we taper the beginning and the end scallop, so that scallop ends in a taper, and then taper as we do that, and taper the tip of it, and then you're ready to begin the next leaf. Mm-hmm. - So it's a continuous line. So here I'm ready at my sewing machine. And, again, I have my fabric marked. If you were doing this on a machine-- or on a quilt that had a border, you wouldn't even have to mark it. You would fill the border. So I'm going to begin by sewing my curvy line, and then tapering that first scallop, two regular scallops, and a tapered scallop. And then we'd repeat that on the other side, and taper to the tip. Now, one thing that's a little bit hard is that we're sewing-- we can't see where we're going. So one of the things that I like to do is put my finger at the end of that, where I want it to end. - Good tip. Sure. That gives me a tactile sense of where I'm going. Because you're sewing south to north here. And you don't-- you can't necessarily see it. So that gives me a little sense of where I'm going. And then scallop back. And then you... And it does have the look of a feather, but yet, a leaf makes it-- the graceful look of a feather, but the leaf makes it more manageable for those of us who are kind of new to this. Exactly, and it's a little bit more modern. Mm-hmm. Now, if your border is very wide, you might actually want to angle those. So I've drawn a little bit larger square-- or rectangle here, and I'm gonna have my leaf go across that border and then taper at an angle. But it's the same thing. It's just headed in a different direction. Mm-hmm. Now, the next one, to keep it interesting, will head up, so they'll both be at an angle. And then scallop back down. Now, we're using small pieces of fabric, but if you're working on a full-size quilt, you'll be having pins to hold the layers together, and, you know, use traditional quilting techniques. We're just sharing with you Lori's beautiful ways of doing the free-motion quilting. That echo is lovely. Well, echo stitching is really a great way to add more emphasis to any design. And echo stitching is just stitching very closely to a previous line of stitching. And you can also add little embellishments like spirals to make it-- to fill in the square a little bit more. So those are just other ways to add to the quilting design. Now, those little curlicues when you get to the end of this leaf are-- you can show your signature tie-off, Lori. Well, I like to stitch a little because there's a buildup of thread. What I'm trying to do here is create-- I create this little curl, and then I stitch back over it, and it's really a knot, is what I'm creating by stitching back over it. Mm-hmm. But because it's stitched over twice, you really see it, so I like to make it something that's pretty and adds a little to the quilt. And it certainly is. And, again, we were working on the solid fabrics, but, notice, if you had a-- on this little sample quilt, here, we'd fill a rectangle with a leaf, curved or straight it could be, but what a beautiful, graceful design that is very doable with these step-by-step techniques. Add a touch of whimsy to your next quilt project with Lori's "School of Fish" design, an ideal choice for the stitching on a guy's quilt or to add charm to your beach or cabin decor. This motif works as well as a background fill or as a border motif. You just saw this little sampler with these cute little schools of fish in different sizes. And, Lori, you have two different passes that you're going to do to create the whimsy here. And great design. This is a really fun motif. - Uh-huh. And it's really when free-motion quilting gets to be fun, when you can add these things. So this is done in two passes. It requires to go all the way to the right and all the way back in order to finish the motif. So we're gonna start with a scallop, and everybody can do a scallop and a small triangle. And you come back, and instead of ending that motif, you come over the top of it and add a spiral. It could be a messy spiral. Come back, echo stitch the bottom, and add another spiral, but we're gonna stitch three or four of those to get the sense of it. Mm-hmm. - So I'm ready. This would be my border. I've just drawn two lines. Yes, sure. So we're just gonna start with our scallop and a small triangle. And then another scallop. We're gonna go over the top of the fish. Create some waves or bubbles... -

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Baby Lock

To begin the next fish. Now, again, this is-- the whole pass has to be completed before we finish the bottom of the fish. But you can see, we're starting to develop this wavy pattern. And how easy it is, when you just have these scallops and triangles to stitch. Now, we're calling this program "Free-Motion Machine Quilting 1-2-3," and the way you have broken down these techniques makes it so that, okay, a scallop, a triangle-- it's something that we can... Visualize. - Grasp--right, exactly. Now, you-- - And easy. Anyone can do a scallop, so... - Sure. So now I am starting the second pass, and it's echo stitching the bottom of the fish. And in between the fish, just to fill that gap, I add a little bit of a spiral, and that gives it a little bit fuller look but adds--adds the fun to the motif, I guess you would say. And now I would finish with this. Now, if I needed to or if I wanted to and I was doing this as a background, I would drop down right here to add another row of fish. Mm-hmm. And, again, you could make them large. You could make them very large, or you could add-- I'm gonna try something here, where we add just a couple little fish. So it looks more like a school. - Sure. And, again, any time you repeat a motif but vary it, it really adds interest to your quilt. It certainly does. And I really like the speed at which you're quilting. Your stitching, it-- it is rhythmic. It's mesmerizing, almost, to watch. I want to watch more as I watch you do this. And you've taught me a lot. Why don't you give a bubble or two in there, Lori? I'm gonna throw you for a loop. - Okay. I would add-- I would probably do the bubbles right at the tip of the fish here. And I would add just really big circles, and, usually, circles are done clockwise and counterclockwise. And you go over them. And that buildup of thread really makes it-- the texture and the fabric come alive. And by adding different sizes, it really looks interesting. Well, as Lori continues to stitch this, you can visualize what project you would use this technique in, whether it's the school of fish, an accent of bubbles; it really has a lot of potential. We're concluding our lessons on free-motion quilting with another nautical motif. Sailboats add charm to quilts for guys, babies, or your favorite fisher-person. Once you learn the basics, Lori will show you how to create a variety in your fleet by changing the shape and the number of sails. Lori, we've called this "Machine Quilting 1-2-3." Well, this one is more like one, two, three, four, five, six. We have a few more steps, but what a great way to fill in, add interest to a block or border. Well, this does have more steps, but they're very easy, and they look great with the fish. So we're gonna start here by just starting with a little bit of a curl and then stitching the back of the boat and a straight-line mast, and then we're gonna add the sails, and they're just simple triangles. Then you curve up to get the back sail in, and then straight down. So these are all straight lines. Mm-hmm. - Very easy to sew. And there's logical stopping places. Now, we're gonna curl towards the front and then under the boat to create the bottom of the boat, looks like water under the boat. And then you're ready to start the next one. So let's take that to the sewing machine. Doesn't matter what size your block is or your border, you can fit this motif in. So I've started-- I already have the water created, so I'm gonna stitch the back of the boat, come towards the center. And here's where I'm gonna use that finger technique, where I'm gonna put my finger approximately where I want to go, and stitch straight up. And now add two triangles, a small triangle flag and now a sail. We're gonna curve up to begin the back sail. Over, straight down. You can stop in any of these places. You could stop there. Stop here. Any of those places are logical places to... Sure. - Move your hands or think. I'll curve forward and then stitch under the boat to create water and then back. We're gonna go back to that original line to begin the next boat. I'm gonna stop right here to move my hands and reposition them so they're centering the boat. Sure. Now, here, we're gonna just try a little something different. We're gonna add three sails on the back. So we'll add three small triangles. I like to add variety. It just adds, really, a lot more interest to the quilt and makes it more fun for someone looking at the quilt. You talked about adding personality. If you had them all the same, it would be-- it would really be boring. It could be boring.

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Baby Lock

To the maker and to the... And--right, to the maker as well. Mm-hmm. But when you're looking at the quilt, that's what really draws you in. Actually, the other thing that really draws you in is if there are slight imperfections. Yes. If it was absolutely perfect, then it looks like it's made by an embroidery machine. And this gives you that hand-drawn look that is really appealing. Sure. So here, we're just gonna do two back sails. And then after you do this, we'll conclude with some quick clouds. So if you'd like, you could do another pass on this motif to add still more depth to the design by just adding-- here we go again with scallops. Uh-huh. Scallops around the mast-- or around the sails make it look like clouds. Very easy to do. Lori's showing this as a border or a continuous design, but you certainly could work with this as in-- in a block, whether it's square or rectangle, where the sailboats could fill in that whole area. You can see on this mini quilt that we're sampling to show that, in the border, we have the fish, the school of fish. So you can combine the techniques. So whether simple, from leaves to flowers, to more-- a little bit more whimsical, to sailboat and fish, Lori has the answers. My Nancy's Corner's guest's goal is to interest young students in science, technology, engineering, and math, otherwise known as STEM. Well, how does she do that? With sewing with electronics. Please welcome Tenaya Hurst, who joins us today via Skype from San Jose. Tenaya, thanks for joining us on Sewing With Nancy. Well, thank you. Hello, Nancy. It's great to be here and to see your wonderful setup and how you have fabric and clothing and electronics. Why don't you tell our viewers how you got started in combining the interest in technology with fabric and sewing? Well, my mom and my grandma and even my grandpa a little bit taught me how to sew. Mm-hmm. So I've always had that skill. And then one magical day, I found out what an Arduino is and what Maker Faire is, and I started seeing what people were doing with it, and I found out that you can use conductive thread. So I was like, "Ooh..." - Ooh. "Something that I'm familiar with and something new." So why don't you show our viewers, explain this technology? Because maybe not all of us are familiar with that. For sure. It's an emerging field. And that's what's great for kids young and old to learn about this, because you can be a maker. So it all starts, really, with this little circuit board that's called an Arduino, and we call it a microcontroller because you can control things. So I like to make circuits on a breadboard, which is this long white thing. And, you know, you plug in your wires, and you're not just doing this willy-nilly; there are, you know... Paths, mm-hmm. Diagrams to follow. And then once you do that, though, you upload programming to it. And you can control light, sound, and motion using sensors. But then what's even more exciting about that is, there's a wearable version, and you can see, it's circular, and we call it the LilyPad. And so this is a cool shirt I made that you can-- I tried to pick for the contrast, but you can see the conductive thread is just right in the fabric. But I needed to make a specific path for the thread because the thread is not like an insulated wire. So there are some really exciting design challenges in doing this. But my favorite part is that this is washable, Nancy. And all those little sensors that you can use with an Arduino to make a circuit, like chips or a buzzer or an RGB rainbow LED, those are all washable and you can sew into your clothes. And you work with kids with this, Tenaya, and--to get them interested in the soft craft and technology and merging the two together. I do, and you know what I found, to make it gender neutral, because-- Nancy, I'm sure you have experience teaching boys to sew too... - Sure. But I like to start, actually, with the electronics. So at a Maker Faire or even just in a class, I will give students a battery and a battery holder and some alligator clips. And what they experiment with is clipping these together. Then, I can kind of show here at the front of my table, they kind of poke around and-- "Hey, it's not working," and, oh, all of a sudden, it lights up, so-- and I know that's really tiny to see-- but then, using these prototyping tools, they can design a circuit and see the lights working and then draw it out or get that needle out and use your conductive thread to just replace the wires. Amazing. You're wearing a hat that is something that you made and--as a maker. Definitely. -

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Baby Lock

I--I found these wires, and they're actually, like, motherboard cables or ATX connectors. And I love to upcycle things, and when I first got into wearable technology, I was like, "I have to wear technology." Like, I want to-- I'm inspired by wires. - Uh-huh. So another great thing that doesn't involve sewing-- but these little fairy lights are really fun to add programming to or just add into clothes. Another one I like to upcycle, for anybody who's into biology out there, I found these little pipettes, and I actually put them around the lights. So that's also what's so fun about this design is, you can be into the electronics, but then the artists are welcome to be like, "Well, how are those lights going to be?" And what's the average age of the kids that you work with? Where do you... What age do you start? I should say. You know, I mean, as early as kids know how to sew, I can teach them this activity. But at a traditional Maker Faire booth that I set up... Mm-hmm, yes. I invite ages five and up. But, especially here in the Silicon Valley, parents will bring their three-year-olds up, and, you know, they're not dexterous with the alligator clips maybe yet, but they get it. They see the light. They're experimenting, so... They see the light.

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Baby Lock

Yeah, so I'll take them as young as they want to start. With Arduino, probably ages eight, nine, ten is a good area... 'Cause you got to have a little bit of patience, but it's so worth it. Well, Tenaya, what a fascinating story you have, a way of incorporating soft craft with electronics. I'm impressed, and I'm sure this will go much further and take you to interesting places. Thanks for joining us. Well, thank you, Nancy.

And just to remember

your future is so bright, you have to wear your shades! -

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And just to remember

And they light up. Tenaya, thanks again for being with us. Thank you, Nancy. - You're welcome. And thank you for watching at home. I hope you've enjoyed this program of Sewing With Nancy. We are concluding our two-part series on "Free-Motion Machine Quilting." Thanks to Lori Kennedy for her help. If you'd like to re-watch this program, go to NancyZieman.com and watch it as many times as you'd like. Thanks for joining us. Bye for now. Nancy and her guest, Lo ri Kennedy, teach you how to give yo ur next quilt project an irresistible pop-up texture. Lori's book, "Free Motion Quilting 1-2-3" features more than 60 clever machine-quilting mo tifs and techniques. Get the book, plus the DVD of highlighted tips for $24.99, plus sh ipping and handling. To order call 800-336-8373 or visit our website at se wingwithnancy.com/3105. Order item number BD3105. Credit card orders only.

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Visit Nancy's website at NancyZieman.com to see additional episodes, Nancy's blog, and more. Sewing with Nancy, TV's longest-airing sewing and quilting program with Nancy Zieman,

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Baby Lock, Madeira threads, Koala Studios, Clover, Fuller Brush Vacuums, Amazing Designs and Klass Needles. Closed captioning funding provided by Riley Blake Designs. Sewing With Nancy is a co-production of Nancy Zieman Productions and Wisconsin Public Television.