Beautiful Flower Quilting, Without the Free-Motion Stress
Feathers and flowers look wonderful on a finished quilt, but many quilters put off trying them because free-motion quilting feels intimidating. The QAYG Quilting Templates Set F – Spring Flowers, from Pauline's Quilters World, takes a different approach: no stress, no pressure, and no free-motion quilting required. Instead, you trace a ready-made design onto your fabric and simply sew on the line.
What This Template Set Is
Set F is part of an expanding range of quilting templates designed for Quilt As You Go (QAYG) work and for quilting block by block on a domestic sewing machine. The pack includes three quilted block templates in a clear colour, built around spring flower designs. The tulip designs are the stars of the set, supported by leaf shapes that create a flowing feel around a block. Please note that this is a template set, not a pattern — it gives you the shapes and the tools, and you supply the imagination and the layout.
Why Quilters Use It
The biggest draw is control. Because the design is traced first and stitched with your feed dogs up, you guide the machine along a line you can already see, rather than drawing with the needle in real time. That makes it much easier to produce simple, elegant flowers — or build up more intricate designs — consistently from block to block.
The set is also flexible. Use an entire shape, or use only parts of the templates and mix and match pieces to create your own design. A motif can fill a block, repeat around sashings and borders, or be arranged so it appears to explode outwards as a focal point. The leaf shapes can even be used for appliqué, so the templates earn their keep beyond quilting lines.
How to Use It
- Plan your layout. Decide where the flowers and leaves will sit — filling a block, framing sashing, or building a border design — before you mark anything.
- Trace the design. Place a template on your fabric and trace the design with a fabric marking pencil, in any configuration you like. Repeat, rotate, or combine parts of different templates until the arrangement looks right.
- Set up your machine. Fit an open toe foot so you can clearly see the line ahead of the needle, and leave your feed dogs up.
- Sew on the line. Stitch along your traced lines, one block at a time, letting the feed dogs help move the fabric evenly as you sew.
- Review and repeat. Check the finished block, then move on to the next one, using the same traced arrangement for a matched set or varying it for a more organic garden feel.
Practical Tips
Test your marking pencil on a scrap of your fabric first, and confirm the marks remove as expected before tracing a whole top. When learning the shapes, start with a single tulip centred in a block — satisfying, quick to stitch, and confidence-building before you tackle borders. Keep tracing lines light; a heavy, wobbly line is harder to follow. And remember partial shapes are a feature: letting a leaf or petal run off a block edge often looks more natural than forcing every motif inside it.
Care and Storage
Store the clear templates flat, away from heat and direct sunlight, so they stay true and easy to trace around. Keep them together in their pack or a labelled folder with your other template sets. Wipe them clean if marking pencil builds up on the edges, and keep them away from your iron and cutting tools.
Project Ideas
Use the tulips to quilt a spring table runner block by block, fill plain blocks in a sampler quilt with matching flowers, or run the leaf shapes as a flowing design through wide borders. The templates suit Quilt As You Go projects especially well, since each block is quilted on its own before joining. For a change of pace, trace the leaf and flower shapes onto appliqué fabrics and build a floral block with no quilting lines at all.
Shop the QAYG Quilting Templates Set F at Linda's Electric Quilters.
