‘Crooked Path’: Spin-e-fex quilting

Frixion pen for quilt marking

I use the ‘Frixion’ pens for making marks to guide any quilting. So far, through testing, I’ve found that the best colour for the majority of fabrics is the green pen. Any of these pens will still leave a ‘ghost’ line after ironing out, so always test them out on a scrap of the fabric to see if will be feint or too noticeable. When any stitching is directly on the line, the ‘ghost’ line will not show at all.

Adjustment guide for ruler foot

With the ‘Westalee Ruler Foot’ on the Bernina 801 sewing machine, the ‘adjustment’ guide positions the foot distance above the quilt. This needs to be done for each quilt, as the thickness of the wadding used will vary according to the type chosen  in the quilt sandwich.

Spin-e-fex template pinned in place

The drawing pin and disk hold the template in place, and the template lines align with the marked lines on the quilt top. For this one, I chose to draw the lines in the centre of the block instead of around the outside edge of the block. Another tip – use a large thick pin to prepare the hole for the drawing pin from the top of the quilt. I found that pushing the drawing pin from underneath pushed up a little ‘plug’ of wadding. As this is the first time I’ve used this method, it could be the type of wadding.

Quilting around the template

This was not as easy as it looked! Stitching around the edge of the template was okay, but coordinating the clockwise movement of the template, the quilt, and stitching – all at the same time, took some ‘learning’ and initially lots of ‘reverse sewing’!

Completed Spin-e-fex

The inner circle formed as the ‘Spin-e-fex’ takes shape had mountains and valleys instead of a line. Although it took time to set up each block, it was satisfying to do and I could see improvement as I quilted more blocks.

I’ve decided to leave them as is, and think about what to do next.