Free Motion Quilting Practice

So I have a love-hate relationship with FMQ'ing—I want to be able to do it and I love those (rare) moments when I seem to be challenging an actual, real-life quilter and it works, but I find the learning curve to be slower than I'd like. Let's face it, as adults, who likes to have to learn to be competent at something? But since I've had to do that for sewing and quilting, I guess it makes sense that I have to be patient and keep working on my free motion quilting!

My friend April recommended a Craftsy class by Angela Walters, who is a quilting superstar. For those not familiar with Craftsy, it's a great site for craft-sters, complete with patterns, projects, and online classes. While a lot of the classes and patterns are for sale, there are also some for free. April had recommended the "dot to dot" class that Angela teaches, so I signed up. One of the benefits of these online classes is that once you buy it, you can keep going back to it and replaying the parts you need.

My FMQ efforts to date have been mostly my attempts to replicate what I see out there on other people's amazing quilts. The difficult aspect of that, however, is that it means I'm trying to get mine to look like the others without necessarily knowing how to get there. Also, I started by practicing circles and stippling. While my stippling is coming along, circles are hard for me overall. What I really like about Angela's class is that she's easy to understand and provides great tips for improving my skill. The first lessons are on straight lines—which, despite some waviness here and there, seems to be more forgiving than the circles are.

Here's what I worked on today for practice:

They're the same essential shape—triangles—but used in different ways achieve a different effect. Angela's class provides the pattern for a quilt to use as a test quilting surface, but I didn't want to go to that effort of making a quilt I like only to put quilting on it that I don't like, so I just made a quilt sandwich from leftover batting and some old fabric that's faded and I won't otherwise use. Clearly, I still need to work on straightening my lines, but it's getting better! I also feel fairly proud of being able to do all of this with my left foot on the pedal, since my right foot will be out of commission until December! My left quad is so tired! Funny the muscles you don't realize you use until you change feet!

Angela had a great tip that has really helped me: don't stare at the needle when I'm quilting; instead, focus on where I want the needle to go. She gives the analogy of driving: when you drive, you don't stare at the hood of the car (at least you shouldn't!); instead you should look 2 car lengths ahead.

Check out Angela's blog, Quilting is My Therapy, for some great patterns and tutorials, including some video clips!

Back From the Blog Grave

Hi y'all!

Remember me! I used to blog here frequently? Now don't get huffy! I didn't forget you! Things have just gotten busy around here and it's been hard to get back to the old blog!

Out in my "other" life (that life that doesn't involve fabric--gasp! I know! Is there such a thing?!), I've been busy with job interviews. And that involves dressing up in heels. Oy, I've been out of practice for that!

In more interesting news, I just returned from a totally awesome sewing retreat hosted by Emily Herrick of Crazy Old Ladies Quilts. I had the best time! There were about 30 ladies at the retreat, which was held at the most amazing (and huge) house in the mountains in Springville, UT. We had a trunk show by Natalia Bonner, who showed off her phenomenal quilting skills. I got one of her books, which I've been wanting for a while, Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting. We also had trunk shows by Amber Johnson from Gigi's Thimble and Katie Spencer of From the Blue Chair. Both are so talented and showed their stunning patterns and quilts. Katie showed off her technique for using her leftover scraps on her quilt backs--such a great way to use up leftover fabric and to create one-of-a-kind backs!

The ladies at the retreat were so talented! Everyone was working on such different projects and it was wonderful to see the diversity of talent and interests! The house has a great room with a loft balcony, and every time someone finished a project she would hang it over the balcony railing for everyone to see and celebrate. So cool! I so wish I had taken photos of everyone's great projects!

This time I was surprisingly parsimonious in the list of projects I brought with me. Usually I bring bag upon bags of projects to work on, but this time I consolidated my things to only one bag, which still left me with several choices of projects. I had finished my baby quilt top for my cousin's son's baby before I arrived at the retreat, so while at the retreat I quilted and binded the top:

This is one of my favorite patterns. It's from  Hooked on Needles and makes a great baby quilt. I pulled out some of my favorite charm squares for this one, including several treasured Heather Ross Munki Munki pieces. I included two of her seahorses, which went really well with the Sarah Jane Out to Sea fabric, especially the mermaids! I did a rainbow-ish color array, using softer colors as this will be for a sweet girl. I still can't figure out what relation Nora is to me: her grandfather is my mother's first cousin. I think that may make her my cousin three times removed, but it kind of makes my head spin to try to figure it out!

This quilt is about 45x45, and uses Riley Blake's Sweet Divinity in pink for the backing. For the quilting I went with stippling. I'm still very much working on my free-motion quilting, but I'm really pleased with how this one came out. I think I'm finally getting the hang of it!

Of course, I was confidently quilting along when I discovered that my tension was screwy and had to undo about four inches in and the length of the fabric. Aaargh! As nice as the place was where we had the retreat, the lighting was not ideal, but I just happened to bring along my headlamp (you never know when you might need it for midnight potty trips!), and it was just perfect for the close-up stitch work. I highly recommend headlamps as critical retreat gear! Perhaps not fashion forward, but definitely a must-have!

In addition to this quilt, I also started my #xplusalong blocks. I saw them on I'm a Ginger Monkey's blog, and I just fell for them! I decided I wanted to use a slightly simpler color palate, so I'm going with aqua, orange, grey, and green. I have 12 done so far, but I have a ways to go if I want to do a queen-sized quilt!

Now that I've done 12, I have a wider range of aqua, more in the darker range, which is pulling out the color more. They look a bit more like the ones in the middle in terms of visual balance. They're pretty quick to make and the blocks are holding my interest . . . which is a good thing, since, as some of you know, I'm not someone who necessarily gets really excited by making block after block!

There will be more news from the retreat later, but before I wrap up, I have an important announcement to share. Due to a horrible situation, a mother and her six children has had to leave their home with little more than the clothes on their back. Some incredible friends and community members are stepping up and providing them with household items, clothes, and living arrangements.

Myra at She Taught Me to Love It is organizing a collection of new quilts for each of the family members, so I'm helping to get the word out. We are looking for new pieced and quilted, twin-sized quilts for the mother and each of her children. There are three boys, aged 6, 12, and 14, and three girls, aged 4, 10, and 16.

It would be great if you could make and donate a quilt for one (or more!) of these children or their mother. If you can't make a whole quilt, then piecing a quilt top or donating fabric, batting, or quilting would be terrific!

If you are able to donate any of the above, please leave a comment with your name and email below. Many thanks!

Gearing up!

I know, I know!! Two days of blogging in a row!

In a few weeks I'm headed to the Utah Valley Quilt Guild retreat in Park City. Yay! High altitude quilting! I'm starting to pull my projects together and I am, of course, planning to accomplish in 3.5 days way more than is humanly possible! 

We're doing a pin cushion exchange, and I tackled one this last week:

There are so many great, free tutorials out there that it took forever to decide what to do! I especially loved the ones that Darling Adventures' blog shared! I have no idea what the other retreat ladies are making, so I hope mine is good enough! 

We're also doing a secret sister exchange of goodies over the course of the retreat. There's a $2 limit per day, so I have to be creative. I'm trusting that they're not assigning me to Sue, my roomie, and since I don't know anyone else at the retreat (and seriously doubt they follow my wee blog!), I'm spilling the beans . . . In addition to a few fat quarters, I decided to make a few things. First, I made one of Keyka Lou's great little clutches. It fits a cell phone, a credit card or two, and some cash. These have become my go-to gifts of late.

I also made this mug rug with a paper pieced spool:

I used selvedges for the spool's "thread." Thankfully, my free motion quilting is continuing to improve! Now if I can just manage to figure out how to FMQ on a large quilt and not just tiny mug rugs!

Seeing Double Rainbows!

Happy Wednesday all! Linking up again with Lee's WIPs at Freshly Pieced.

No, I'm not showing old photos--I've decided to make another Rainbow Sprout quilt, this time for our friends' baby. I had started (and finished the top of) a quilt ages ago (last summer!), but I was really unhappy with it. I so so loved this rainbow quilt pattern that I decided to make another. And it's such a quick project! I pieced the top together yesterday and I'm ready to quilt it today. Last time I used a wonky-style geometric quilting, but this time I think I'm just going to to FMQ all the way. I used many of the same charm squares I used for the last quilt, although I did change it up a little, using the fabulous sailboats from Emily Herrick's new line that I got from Sue (thanks Sue!). Goes perfectly with the bits from Going Coastal that I had already put in!

As for other projects, I'm still working away on my sock: one foot done, one more to go! Actually, truth be told, I have about 3 feet to go, as I tend to start new socks without finishing old sets that I had previously started! It's just that new projects are so much more exciting!!

I'm making headway with the granny squares: 17 down, 7 to go! The only hang-up in my progress is that I ran out of white, and while I'm 99.9% sure that the white I have in my stash is Kona White and not Kona Snow, I don't want to be wrong. Anyone out there know how different they are -- would I be able to tell if I put them up against each other? They look pretty much identical to me!

And on the non-crafty front, wish me luck: I'm embarking on 30 days without sugar, dairy, grains or processed foods! Okay, so I'm not giving up my diet coke, but other than that I'm eating clean!

Happy Boxing Day!

December 26, 2011

I think Sophie best captures the essence of this day after Christmas with her intense afternoon snooze, because, after all, playing with all her Christmas goodies was quite exhausting!! She and Zoey made off like bandits--between Santa and their Uncle Christopher, I'm not sure a chewie, frisbee, yum-yum, or stuffie was left ungifted (although don't tell them, but a lot of their gifts have been hidden away so as not to spoil them all at once)!

As the vastly improved quality of my blog photos suggests, Santa brought a new camera to the household, so my sweetie has been taken shots of everything around the house. What a difference a quality camera makes! I can't wait to see what it does with fabric!

I did get back to the sewing machine today--I just couldn't stay away! I finished a project I had hoped to get in the mail before the holidays (but had run out of time and steam). I tried my hand at FMQ'ing which was both better than I had hoped and still a cause for some entertainment and/or frustration (depending on the particular moment!). Clearly more practice is in dire need!