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Tara Wright
Jan 13, 20233 min read

Quilting Motif - Curvy Brackets

A new year needs some new quilting designs (and tutorials), so let's kick things off with this riff of a wavy line which I call CURVY BRACKETS.

I have been thinking of quilting this design for awhile, but it needs a linear quilting area so it took me awhile to have the opportunity to try it. But with the release of my free pattern, Streamers & Confetti, I had a perfect canvas to make this simply lovely design.


Find the free pattern here (so you can practice too!):


A throwback to Sesame Street...


I was thinking about the inspiration for this motif and heard in my brain..."This quilting design is brought to you by this button on your keyboard." Haha!



So you can see that this is a very specific repeat of a simple wavy line, and I figured it would be easy to repeat with just a little prep work. And YES the keyboard does seem to provide lots of inspiration for quilting designs - asterisks, Es, Ls, and I'm sure we can find some more!




Practicing a New Design

Since this is a new design for me, I practiced on paper a little bit and then transferred "paper" to my fabric by drawing some lines with my heat-sensitive markers. I drew 2" lines since I was going to quilt on a jelly roll strip quilt.


Then I drew in some brackets. You can see it took me a moment to get it to look fairly equal. I also tried shifting the rows so it actually looked like brackets on the quilt, but I decided to go with the echoing version.


When it came to stitching on my quilt, I used the seam lines for my top and bottom guide, and then I made registration lines every 3 inches to mark where I would dip up or down.



I only marked the first row (in the center of my quilt), and then I just eyeballed it since I was echoing the previous lines. I do not draw all over my entire quilt tops!

This is easier to do with a free-motion foot, but I think you could do it with your walking foot if your up/down increments are wide enough apart. As you will see in the video below, I always stitch pushing the quilt away from me like usual - that way I can see where I am stitching.


FYI - the first part of the video is my practice in real time, and then the 3x speed for doing a few rows on the quilt. I could stitch an entire row (about 52") in 2 minutes, so this design can get your quilts finished pretty quickly!




When the stitching is done just iron (or mist) the lines away and admire the prettiness! Isn't this a fun design?





If you are new around here and/or quilting your own projects, I did a major quilt-along last year and here are links to all the quilting designs we did:


January 24 – Affection/GRIDS Quilting Motif 1 - Grids (polkadotpeep.com)

February 7 – Refuge/OUTLINING Quilting Motif 2 - Outlines (polkadotpeep.com)

February 21 – Joyful/SQUIGGLES Quilting Motif 3 - Squiggles (polkadotpeep.com)

March 21 – Devotion/PUMPKIN SEEDS Quilting Motif 5 - Pumpkin Seeds (polkadotpeep.com)

April 4 – Inspiration/WAVY LINES Quilting Motif #6 - Wavy Lines (polkadotpeep.com)

May 2 – Admiration/FRACTURED SPIRAL Quilting Motif 8 - Fractured Spiral (polkadotpeep.com)

May 16 – Infatuation/SCALLOPS Quilting Motif 9 - Scallops (polkadotpeep.com)

July 11 – Patience/PEARLS ON A STRING Quilting Motif 13 - Pearls on a String (polkadotpeep.com)

August 8 – Grateful/ASTERISK (INTERSECTING LINES) Quilting Motif 15 - Asterisk (polkadotpeep.com)

September 6 - Enamored/MEANDER Quilting Motif 17 - Meander (polkadotpeep.com)


With new endeavors this year, I aim to do ONE quilting per month and I hope to "see" you practice your quilting skills by sharing to me here or on social media by tagging me #polkadotpeepdesigns OR @polkadotpeepquiltsetc on Facebook and Instagram.


Have questions or need more details/info? Please leave a message below.


Until next time, have fun stitching away!


Be blessed,

Tara


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