I’m in the market for some uncommon quilting designs. 

Those quilty designs that jump out at you for reasons you can’t always put your finger on and can be difficult to replicate later in your own quilts. 

I’m just about to start a project with a ton of negative space and I’m knee deep in pinterest research to create the perfect quilting plan. 

In my research to develop my perfect version of negative space quilting, I came across a style of quilting that’s new-to-me that officially allows me to put a name to some of the amazing quilting designs I’ve been ogling. 

And its name is Grid Quilting.

I’ve gone out and collected a whole bunch of grid quilting ideas to get you started with this fun unique technique and today I’m showing you what I came up with!

What is grid quilting?

Believe it or not, it’s not always as simple as just quilting in two directions across your quilt to make a grid. 

You can use grid quilting to take it a step further and use the grid lines as a structured way to free motion quilt. 

Using the grid lines as boundaries, you can quilt the open areas between your grid lines to keep things perfectly scaled and spaced. 

This technique can be used in a ton of different ways to get different effects so I put together 9 great grid quilting ideas for you to try on your next quilt!

Supplies for grid quilting

Depending on your design of choice, you’ll need a variety of different things:

Walking foot 
Marking tools for straight line quilting
Free motion foot (optional but recommended)
Quilt or practice swatch

Choosing a quilting grid 

Before getting too far, you’ll need to decide what type of grid you want to use. 

Different grids will give you different size areas to fill in with your quilting and will give slightly different looks. 

The only real difference between the grids is the angles of the lines and the orientation:

Traditional square grid 
Square grid on point
Diamond grid (60 degrees is a common favorite)

Depending on your quilt top design, you may find yourself leaning to one type of grid over another. 

Maybe you have a very block heavy quilt with borders and sashing in it to create a strong grid naturally in the quilt top design. 

Instead of trying to line up a quilted square grid with the lines of your blocks, opting for a diamond grid will keep you from having to stress about lining up your grid with blocks that may not be perfectly square. 

Or maybe you are working in some negative space and need a good modern geometric filler. 

Using a square grid is simple, straight-forward, and gives that negative space quilting some serious wow-factor without being fussy in the angles. 

The applications are endless so try out everything and see what you like!

Using the Grid

Once you’ve decided on the style grid you want to use, it’s time to sew! 

The bigger the grid, the less stitches you’ll be tempted to add, keeping the quilt nice and soft so keep that in mind as you start putting thread to quilt top.

The smaller the grid is, the less detail you’ll be able to add simply because it’ll be harder to see.

As a rule of thumb, avoid going any smaller than 2-3 inches between your grid lines to give you enough breathing room to actually see the detail that you’re adding! Feel free to go as large as you like though, as long as you can quilt the open areas dense enough to avoid your batting from falling apart in the wash later. 

Once your grid is quilted, start adding your designs! 

Add more lines for a geometric look, add waves to give it an orange peel look, or even pair different designs in adjacent cells to get secondary designs! 

9 Grid Quilting Ideas for Beginners

To get you started in thinking about all the possibilities I put together a few different example grid quilting ideas.

Use them exactly, or use them as inspiration, the decision is up to you!

New to grid structured free motion quilting? These three designs are great for beginners with simple straight-forward designs. 

Checkerboard

This designs is best used on a square grid but looks great on either a straight grid or an on point grid. 

Quilt your grid first and then go back and forth quilting down every other square. This is most commonly done by matchstick quilting back and forth across the square but you can use whatever design you like. 

Moving across the grid is typically done by working on the diagonal. When you get to the point of one square simply sneak into the corner of the next square diagonally working your way across the grid. 

Ribbon Candy

The checkerboard has quite a few stitches in that dense zig zagging back and forth. Maybe you aren’t into the tediousness of it? Or maybe it just feels too stuffy and formal?

You can get a similar look with many other designs that can be done in half the time!

I’m a lover of anything ribbon candy so I gave it a go and love how it gives it a fun whimsical feel to the same checkerboard alternative design.

The only catch to using alternative designs is getting the design into the very corners and edges of the grid squares. When you have gaps between the corners and edges, the pattern your grid starts to loose the its grid effect.

Loop de Loop

Adding a little more interest, once you’ve quilted your grid, try adding a third line to the grid on the 45 deg to split each grid cell in half on the diagonal to resemble half square triangles. Which direction you choose is up to you.

Once you have your triangles quilted, fill in one side of the triangle using a loop de loop design leaving the opposite unquilted. Work your way across the quilt in the same way sneaking from one corner into a corner of an adjacent cell. 

The only trick is to make sure you quilt the same side of the square in each cell to get the checkerboard effect. 

ProTip: you can switch out the loop de loops for any design you like: matchstick quilting, wishbones, or anything else you like. 

Herringbone

This one builds off of the checkerboard pattern from earlier.

Once you’ve zig zagged your way across one cell of the grid, work your way into the one directly next to it and zig zag the opposite way. 

The opposing zig zags will give you a fun herringbone effect when you’ve finished it.

You can do this in two ways, either quilt in rows changing the way you zig zag for each cell, or work on the diagonal quilting all of the cells in one zig zag direction first and then going back to fill in the opposite direction. 

Diamonds

Start with a square grid on point, this one is a fun dot-to-dot method. 

We’re using the “Touch, Don’t Touch, Touch” method here. Starting in a corner of one of the cells, quilt towards the next corner over without actually touching the corner. We want it to stop a bit short just inside of the corner. This is the “don’t touch” where we are avoiding touching the grid with our quilting line. 

Now make a corner and head towards the corner diagonally opposite the one you started at. Landing right in the corner exactly on the corner of the cell. This is the last “touch”.

Repeat this process zig zagging through the cells diagonally across the grid. When you finish one line, go back and repeat for the opposite side of the cell. 

Eventually you’ll end up with a full quilt of echoed diamonds and a fun geometric design. 

Running arcs

For this one start with a 60 deg diamond grid and add horizontal lines through the cells to create equilateral triangles.  

Work your way across the lines of the grid stitching arcs that start and end at the intersections of each cell. 

When you finish one line, start again to quilt the opposite side of that grid line. 

Repeat the process for every line of the grid until you’ve got the texture in the picture above!

This design is a great one because you can make it look different depending on the grid style you use and the level of arcing you use. 

For a simple look stick with a shallower arc, for a fuller look make the arcs deeper into the cell.

Deco Lines

I love this design because the grid can be difficult to identify to anyone that looks at it which makes it look much harder than it actually is.

Start with another 60 deg grid and quilt three echo lines diagonally through 5 cells before turning and zig zagging back the opposite way another 5 cells. 

Overlap your rows of zig zags so the points are all in alignment with each other creating a great deco era geometric design across your quilt. 

This design is a great option because its a much larger scale than the other options on this list making quicker work of your quilting process.

This one would look amazing on a large scale grid (5-6″ grid size) across your whole quilt as an overall pattern. This would be super fun using a quilt pattern like Lo and Behold’s Deco pattern.

One of the best parts of this pattern is that it can be done solely with your walking foot, no free motion quilting required!

Fishbone

We’ve officially dived into the options that are “sans grid”. Grid quilting ideas that use a marked grid to quilt out, but you don’t actually quilt the grid. You just use it as a guide. Eventually it fades and you are just left with a perfectly consistent design.

Fishbones are one of my all time favorite large scale designs on quilts and happen to be perfect candidates for grid quilting! 

Start your fishbone and aim to get the top of your loop to straddle a vertical line and just barely touch the intersection of 4 cells before looping and moving on. 

When you get to the bottom of the fishbone, aim to straddle the next vertical line over, but when you loop, make your loop just past the horizontal line extending into the row of cells below. 

When you loop and cross back over your previous stitches, you should be traveling through the intersection of 4 cells. 

Repeat the process across the row and in subsequent rows across the quilt to get a perfectly spaced fishbone design. 

You can change up the look and density of your fishbone by using different quilting grids. 

Scallop

The hardest part of a scallop is keeping them uniformly tall and wide, but marked grids can help you break them down and free hand your scallops without rulers. 

Start with a square grid that is only marked, not stitched, on the surface of your quilt top. 

Get your thread started on the edge at an intersection of a vertical and horizontal line. Swing down and end in the opposite corner of the cell to create the first half of your scallop. In the next cell do the opposite and swing up to the opposite corner to finish the scallop. 

The grid will help you keep the height and the width uniform as you work across the grid for a consistent free-handed scallop look. 

Orange Peel

This is a great simple design for a grid quilting idea without committing to too much work.

Again, start out by marking a square grid but don’t stitch it. 

This is using the same running arcs design from early but utilizing a different style grid and leaving out the grid lines.

Use the marked lines to create your running arcs working down the rows.

Once your marked lines disappear you’re left with a perfectly free-handed orange peel or double wedding ring pattern! Blow this design up to a large 6″ square grid for an all over pattern or keep it small as a filler pattern in the background of some negative space.

Related:
10 Easy Quilting Designs for Beginners
7 Border Quilting Ideas that Only Look Difficult
7 Uncommon Quilting Designs to Use on Your Next Quilt
15 Half Square Triangle Designs for Your Quilting Plan

Ways to incorporate these grid quilting ideas

So now that you are a grid quilting ninja, how do we put these awesome new machine quilting skills to use?

All Over Quilting

Grid quilting can be used as a stand alone quilting design all over your quilt! 

Start by quilting your grid across the entire quilt before filling it all in row by row. 

If you are hesitant to go full free motion quilting meander, or just want something a little different than your usual quilting designs, this is an easy way to change it up without having to worry about creating a fully custom free motion quilting plan. 

The structured design of grid quilting gives you just enough room to experiment and be creative while also giving you lines to color in and make sure it’s all still going to look good. 

If you are using this technique across a full quilt, opt for a larger grid size so you can see the detail from further away and don’t get trapped in the tediousness of trying to quilt 2 inch squares across a full size quilt. 

Filler Designs

So you decided on a full-board custom quilting plan. Where you would use any free motion background filler meander, you can also use these grid quilting ideas! 

Using smaller grid sizes will help you get the denser quilting designs you’re looking for to pair with those beautiful feathers and other featured motifs. 

Not sure how to make it work? Schnig Schnag Quilts did a project using grid quilting in the background that you can find here!

Getting Creative

Grid quilting ideas are not just limited to what I’ve shown today. Play around with different grid designs and different filler designs, pair multiple filler designs for secondary patterns, and more. 

Grids are a great way to add rules to quilting for those of us who like the structure of rules to follow. Lines to color in, if you will. 

If you are looking for more quilting designs to break away from your usual go-tos, be sure to check out our FREE pantograph quilting template you can quilt on your domestic sewing machine for your next quilting project. 

The template is free so be sure to grab yours through the link above and start getting some variety in your machine quilting life!