June Free Motion Quilting Challenge

SewCalGal, the hostess for the Free Motion Quilting Challenge, invited Cindy Needham to be June's free motion instructor. Cindy's incredible talent blows me away with not only her fabulous quilts but with her free motion quilting style and method of teaching! Cindy's work is very detailed yet she is quite laid back in creating her art. Her specialty is quilting with antique linens. Check out Cindy's website. I printed all her pages as they will always be a great read for reviewing and future reference.

The picture to the left is my first practice attempt. More practice needed! Yet I am inspired! I really focused on making my machine hum and purr!

Background music helped me to stay in rhythm. My favorite was listening to Shamrock and Thistle. Try it! You will absolutely find the Irish music perfect for when free motion quilting. Check some of the line ups at NPR Online Radio.

Time to get serious by making a drawing that will work with my fabric size. If you have been following me you know that I have been making each monthly sample into a wall hanging.

I love the idea of filling in around the main design, though my drawing doesn't reflect but one fill in style my finished piece included many more.

Being a novice I was being brave to use color thread that shows all the oops! Maybe I will learn from them.

Cindy Needham thank you so much for giving of your time! I had so much fun making this piece and using your ideas.

Free Motion Quilting Challenge April & May with SewCaGal

This display was an effort to kill two birds with one stone. Having been 3 months behind with SewCaGal's Free Motion Quilting Challenge. I used this piece for April's and May's Free Motion Quilting Challenge of the month.

Don Linn was April's instructor who shared a new way on transferring a quilting motif on a quilt being prepared to be quilted. Though I didn't use Don's particular motif I did use a motif from "Follow-the-Line Quilting Designs Volume Three" by Mary Covey. I used the continuous line feather pattern which became the stem and leaves for my large hexagon flower.

Don's method of transferring is a nice way of drawing a motif. He traces the pattern on tulle that is placed in an embroidery hoop. He uses permanent ink (Sharpie) to draw on the tulle. Once that is done the ink is set by placing your iron on nylon heat temperature. From there the drawn motif now can be traced onto the quilt with an water removable marking pen.

May's FMQ Challenge instructor was Leah Day. Her Free Motion Quilting tip was creating a curvy line and going back over it with stippling. Leah terms this as foundation quilting which I used for the background of my project. I love how this looks. It is a fun and easy free motion quilting motif. I like the idea of just going for it and not having to draw a design on the quilt top. This to me equates to being free. But for now and until the day comes that I perfect my free motion quilting skills - which I think will take another 150 hours or so I may need to rely on drawing my quilting designs on the quilt top.

I will be using this piece as a part of a wall hanging which is becoming even more improvisational than originally planned as I now have deviated from my original layout design.

I haven't sewn it together yet, but here is a picture that shows the pieces side by side.

Now I need to think about June's. Almost there.

Pictorial of WIPs

 

I won a pair of Grab A Roo's at the Charlotte Modern Quilting Guild. I love love love using them! Generally I use Neutrogena's Norwegian Formula hand cream. It works well too, but it does wear off.

Picnik and PicMonkey

I like enhancing my pictures. Generally I have been using Picnik but as many of you already know they will be shutting down their website April 19th. I learned from Ellison Lane Quilts that there is a new photo editing website on the horizon and it is PicMonkey. So today I experimented with the new site. It is quite user friendly. At the moment it doesn't have all the features that Picnik had, and yet it has other features that Picnik didn't have. Click on the PicMonkey below and it will take you to their website.

Please share how many projects you have in the works currently and if you are excited about the new photo editing website?

Free Motion Quilting Challenge 2012 & Energy Balls

Thank you again for SewCaGal for sponsoring the Free Motion Quilting Challenge 2012. Clicking on the Free Motion Quilting Challenge icon below will direct you to SewCaGal's blog featuring March's Free Motion Quilting tutorial with instructor, Ann Fahl, a talented free motion quilter. She has been doing FMQ for over 30 years which qualifies her to be called an expert. Wouldn't you say!

I love Ann's motif Loop and Twist. I added a daisy like flower to Loop and Twist to give the design some whimsy to go along with the YoYo flowers. Each month's challenge block will be added to previous FMQ Challenge 2012 blocks making a wall hanging.  The wall hanging will be a display of free motion quilting, applique and other techniques used by quilters.
 

While free motion quilting I kept thinking that the loops and twist were like bees flying to and fro buzzing around the daisies. Bzzz Bzzz Bzzz. I was feeling a little Bzzz myself while free motion quilting. Why? Because I had eaten a couple of easy, fast and no bake Energy Bars. 

1 cup dry oatmeal (Old-Fashioned Oats

1 cup toasted coconut flakes (made the house smell so divine)

1/2 cup chocolate chips (feeds the chocolate addict)

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/3 cup honey

1 tsp vanilla

Throw all the ingredients in a mixing bowl, taste test, stir a bit more, taste test again, chill for about 30 minutes. Roll into balls. They will store for about 1 week in an airtight container for up to 1 week - that is if they last that long. Enjoy!

Don't forget to visit SewCaGal's blog. You will love Ann Fahl's free motion quilting tips, stuff and see the covers of her published books. Just click on the icon below.

Happy quilting and happy Friday to you!

Free Motion Quilting Challenge February 2012 - Tah Dah Feathered Plumes

I want to thank Darlene (SewCaGal) for managing the Free Motion Quilting Challenge 2012. Having personally manage many group efforts - swaps, challenges and group quilts I know first hand the amount of time involvement there is when managing them, especially with the on-going communication that occurs. What I have done does not begin to compare since I have not managed one where there are 2,000 participants as there are in the FMQ Challenge 2012! That is amazing!

Tah Dah! My Feathered Plumes after much and exhausting practice. It was an all day affair! In yesterday's post I wrote about having to slow down my brain! Click on brain to learn how I went about doing that whatever is left of it after practicing all day! If you have seen the picture of the quilter's brain floating around facebook you should know I was too tired to even have it processing correctly. My hubby asked me what I did while he was working and I showed him the above and said it took me all day to learn how to do this thinking he couldn't possibly understand, but he did and even encouraged me. Whew!

Though I had implemented many ideas that Diane Gaudynski gave plus my own, my plumes just were not looking like plumes, not in my drawings and not in my practice sandwiches. Oh! Diane thank you so much for your wonderful tutorial! It was fabulous. I even wrote many of your tips down in my FMQ Sketch Book. Yes - I know I am rabbit trailing. Back to the misshapen plumes. Finally, I drew with pencil lightly the shape of a finished plume and then began to pencil in my feathers to fit the guidelines. I learned sometime during the practice affair that I needed to see lines so I had something to focus on while stitching. And. . . . because I was getting tired. . . when stitching the plumes I rested a few seconds after each feather to refocus on the direction I needed to go.

My Practices

My FMQ Sketch Book

Quilt as You Go - January's Meets February's

My reworked FMQ Challenge 2012 Quilt as you Go

After posting the picture above I noticed that my feathered plumes piece was not straight. During the do over I decided the blue/aqua was too dominant. I centered the folding star and added another layer of triangles with decorative stitching and chose the batik red/orange for a border.

I love comments! I like to know who has visited.