In December I made this wall hanging -
and a few people asked me how I quilted the palm leaf design shown in the upper right corner, so I thought I would add a tutorial for it.
The design is one from the amazingly talented Cindy Needham. She uses a stencil for her starting clamshell design, mine is made using a grid. She also calls it Gingko Leaves, but since I already quilt a different Gingko design, I have chosen to call mine Palm Leaves.
The design begins with a clamshell, that is made up of a quarter circle in a grid.
Four of the quarter circles are put together to form the clamshell,
all the clamshells fit together like this -
The design starts with a grid. I marked a 1/2" grid for this one, using a iron-off marking pen and a ruler. The lines should be at 45° to the grain of the fabric.
Plain Clamshells are stitched as bumpy lines, one row on top of another. Clamshells can be made on various size grids, and additions can be added for embellishment. Anita Shackelford shows some lovely additions to clamshells here.
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| Close up of the Palm Leaves |
Here is a video demonstrating how I stitch the Palm Leaves -
I divided each half of the clamshell with 4 stitched lines, but the number depends on the size of the grid and personal preference.
When stitching the next row, the design is reversed -
Clamshells and Palm Leaves -
I used regular sewing thread for the stitching on this piece, in a contrasting colour so it would show, usually I use a 100Wt thread in a matching colour so that the design looks better.
I also added beads to the Palm Leaves on the Whole Cloth frame (you don't notice all the backtracking with 100Wt thread).
Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!❤
