Cockle Quilting by Treadle Tutorial

Dear Friends and Readers,

Where I live, in South Australia, I have always had an affinity for the beach.  One of the most common shellfish found along these beaches are cockles. In fact there are some secret beaches where the sand is thick with the shell grit of cockles, and a brief dig will reveal thousands.  The beaches are dry and hot but the waters of the great Southern Ocean are mostly cool.

So, it’s not without coincidence, that it seemed only logical to me to quilt cockle shells onto my Periwinkle Blues Quilt.

Periwinkle Blues Quilt Part 2

The quilt has large expanses of white so this is a good way to easily quilt the space.

I’ve used a variegated thread for this quilting. It’s in Blues to white.  I’m using this treadle, black beauty. She’s a powerful machine. Trust me on this, I managed to pierce my finger just with the normal dropping of the needle, without any force.

Singer 31K20 Treadle & Free Motion Quilting

 

Here is how I did it. As always, I recommend practicing with paper and pencil first, to prepare your mind. In each quadrant of the white I will quilt one cockle shells.

Free Motion Quilting Part 4 – Begin FMQ

Repeat for each quadrant until you have four.  You will note that they all begin from the centre point and work outwards. This makes it a very easy way to quilt the space.

I must tell you that I outline quilted all the Periwinkles first to stabilise the quilt.  This made it very easy to go back and quilt cockles in the negative spaces.

 

I am posting a video to show you more.

Here is the finished quilt.

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Happy Quilting,

Susie