From the Sewing Room: free-motion Bugs in my Garden quilting motif

Welcome back! Today we are looking at bug and garden free-motion quilt motifs you can use to quilt a relaxed and friendly child’s quilt. You can use these motifs in almost endless combinations to personalise all sorts of projects. It will be fun! 🙂

At our house, we like bugs and slugs, and most things creepy crawly. Not actually in our house…. outside, thanks! However, we do have half a dozen buggy residents who are welcome in our house. (If you hate insects, look away now!! Please don’t unfollow…. I’m not likely to post them again!) Otherwise, if you’re game, meet “the girls”…..

Insects and other garden dwellers are a regular feature in family discussions around here. Accordingly, I have quilted bugs on quite a few projects in the last few years. So when I received a colourful bug and flower-themed quilt sandwich to quilt for a charity group, for once I knew exactly what to do with it!

Bugs in my Garden FMQ

I only quilt friendly bugs. Nothing that bites, and no spiders to date. And I always quilt the bugs a place to live. So my go-to “Bugs in my Garden” free-motion set consists of caterpillars, snails, dragonflies, butterflies, leaves, flowers and suns. I have also added hearts to this particular quilt. All the motifs are linked with a simple loop-de-loop. This collection is fast to quilt, and results in a nice amount of quilting that leaves the quilt snuggly soft. It is also fun for children to hunt the motifs on their quilts. After the formal trapunto project with feathers and micro stippling last week, quilting Bugs in my Garden felt like dancing!

Here is the finished quilt. Now it goes off to another charity quilter to be bound.

More about the Bugs in my Garden FMQ motifs

Here are some close-ups of the quilting:

Here are some even closer views of the critters in my garden:

And some of the garden motifs too:

Want to try “Bugs in the Garden”?

I’m hoping you like Bugs in my Garden and can think of someone who would like to explore a quilt covered in these fun motifs. If you would like to try them yourself, I have put them all the motifs together in a 4-page pdf you can download for free. You don’t have to follow my blog or sell me your soul. Just promise me you’ll pay it forward a little. 🙂
Download here: Bugs in my Garden motifs

This pdf contains line drawings of the motifs with travelling directions marked so you can see how each motif is constructed.  

I hope you have caught the quilting bug!

Sorry! My daughter has been learning about puns at school this week 🙂

P.S. This is my second link up with  the Quilt Bloggers Festival at Amy’s Creative Side. Come on over to see a huge number of quilt bloggers in one place!

P.P.S. Also linking up with my favourite linky parties as they open: 
Free Motion Mavericks
Crazy Mom Quilts
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Busy Hands Quilts

P.P.P.S. I always always have other stuff I am busting to tell you….. for instance, yesterday I was looking through my Pinterest feed and I found a very cool hexagon ladybird quilt. And, then when I visited the source page, it turns out the post was written for one of Amy’s early Quilt Blogger Festivals in 2010! If you want to see the quilt I stumbled on, visit this archive of Personalized Sketches and Sentiments. I have to say I was a little amazed at the coincidence, being in the process of writing a buggy post for Amy’s festival in 2017 and all! For more amazing and weirdly relevant quilt finds on the internet be sure to follow the clever chameleon where ever she goes…… soon I’ll be posting from Vanuatu!