One of the quilting world’s staple designs is the meander. Sometimes we don’t even think of the meander as a design. It is just a single line wiggling all over the quilt. The word meander actually comes from the name of a river in south western Turkey that has a lot of twists and turns. Now it just means to follow a winding course. However you define it, on a quilt it means a quilting texture that doesn’t add an additional design to the top. It is just nice and neutral. The following quilts are some of our longarm machine renters who chose our meander design board to finish their quilt. The board helps keep the meander nice and even.

Meandering Carol's Irish Chain

Carol meandered her Irish chain quilt with us. There are several variations of this classic design. I really like how Carol’s is on point. She used Christmas themed fabrics, making this perfect for the upcoming holidays! The white background really helps those prints pop out. The double border was another great choice for this quilt. It just frames this so nicely.

Peggy's Applique

This is a rental certification student, Peggy. This quilt was made by taking a large piece of gray fabric and appliqueing some hexagons to it. For the rental certification class, we tell students to bring in a top to learn on. Something your dog would look good sleeping on. We do everything in our power to help you succeed, but whenever you are learning something new, mistakes will be made, and some of them may show up. She said she was going to just bring in a solid piece of fabric (many students do), but she thought it looked too boring. So she appliqued a little interest into it. I think it looks great. The meander worked great as well. It will wash well and make a great dog bed.

Kim's Split Rail

This is Kim’s variation on a split rail fence. The soft pinks, grays, and white framed with that bold black border is amazing. The yellow is a nice contrast as well, to add a little interest to this top. It kind of brightens the whole thing. This was also quilted with an all over meander. It keeps the piecing in the forefront.

Jennifer's T-shirt Quilt

Meanders are especially popular with t-shirt quilts. Jennifer brought in this t-shirt quilt that she made for a friend. When you have something with a lot of details that you want keep the focus of the piece, quilting that adds more detail can be distracting. A meander gets the job done without the fuss. I love the dark sashing that allowed her to cut these shirts to their own perfect size. I can just see a quilt like this on a dorm room bed. What a great memento of your life so far!

Kim's Log Cabin

This is another quilt from Kim. She created this quilt with log cabin blocks. To be honest, I’d never seen a log cabin like this. I really like the secondary design you get from placing of the light corners together to form a much larger block. The purple really stands out against the grey. It is hard to see, but there are purples in the calicoes and prints of the fabric. Any quilting on a top like this would have been difficult to see. The meander does its job and doesn’t fight for attention the way a floral or geometric design might have.

Simple is often the best choice when it comes to design. When you just want to quilt the pieces together, but not add anything else to the design, you can’t go wrong with a meander. However, not all meanders lack additional design. Check out this video of a flame meander. Let the river flow in all the twists and turns it wants.