Have you ever seen a gorgeous longarm quilting design and thought to yourself, “Wow! I wish I could do that on my quilts!” Well, with the Holly Template by Dabline, you will be able to make festive holly leaves and berries using your sit-down “basic” quilting/sewing machine. 

 Make sure you know Set Up Your Machine for Quilting with Templates before you start practicing on how to use the Holly Leaves and Berries template.

Now that you have your machine set up and ready for quilting with templates, you can begin practicing with the Holly Leaves template. 

How to Use Dabline’s Holly Template 

Before you dive into stitching onto your freshly completed quilt top that you spend 30+ hours constructing, we always recommend doing some practice movements and stitches on a scrap piece of fabric and batting. 

You want to get your hands and brain used to the movements that you will be making while doing free motion quilting with rulers. 

Using the card that comes with the Holly Template, choose a starting point for your first leaf. You want all your leaves to start from the same point so for example, if you have a 9” square you want to center the holly design into, you will need to start your needle in the center of the square. Like the image below. 

Slowly follow the curve of the template with your FMQ foot. Take it nice and slow to begin with, focusing on making smooth movements and not moving the template across the fabric. 

TIP: Whether you are just practicing or actually quilting a quilt, with this template, it is much easier to achieve those nice crisp corners of the holly leaves by stopping and starting again each time you reach one. This will also help if you need to shift your hands at all while moving the fabric under the needle. 

Stop the template in the exact spot you started when you make it around the entire template (this will be much easier when you are using your needle instead of “pretending to sew”.)

Move the template and grip to the next leaf you want to “stitch”, but don’t forget, you want to start your stitch in the exact same spot you started your first leaf. 

Continue practicing the movements until you are confident you can move the template and fabric simultaneously under the needle.

Next, we recommend doing a practice holly design or two on your scrap quilt sandwich before quilting your actual project. Use the same tips you followed while doing the previous practice and take it slow and steady. 

Once you are ready to quilt your final project, go for it, and don’t forget to have lots of fun!

Our team at Dabline sincerely hopes you have a blast quilting with our templates! With the Dabline Quilting Template Set, you are able to achieve unbelievably gorgeous longarm quilting designs with your own regular sewing machine. 

To learn more visit our YouTube channel

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