UFO Sunday #8

Thanks to Leah Day for answering my question re the amount/density of quilting on my little 'cat' wall hanging on Question Thursday #35 on the Freemotion Quilting Project. That was very helpful, particularly re the need to quilt the border a bit more densely. I was wondering about that...now it is just a matter of working out what design to choose.

I did make a start earlier in the week and microstippled the area around the house and yes, the sun (and moon) popped out nicely.

This took a while to do but was a great warm-up. I then outlined the cats underneath it...not sure whether I will leave it like that or whether I might do a bit more on that area, but I thought it needed some variation, rather than microstippling every single area.

Next, I pondered over the cats above the house and finally came up with this

 

 

Here is a bit of a close-up

I did not want to microstipple again and thought I just follow the wood grain lines...now those cats just about jump out of the wall hanging. Great 3D effect with the wool batting. This is also a design Cindy Needham had demonstrated on the  SewCalGal Freemotion Quilting Challenge during June. I had not tried this before and must say, what a great way to flatten an area quickly and effectively (yes, I am a bit of a lazy quilter). Like Leah had suggested I outlined the cats and heart first then started the lines in the left hand corner moving one by one across each section, i.e next to the left cat first, then moving on to the section between the heart and the cat from top to bottom and up again the other side making my way around to the other cat. Too easy...lines are not straight, I just followed the wood grain feature loosely and it looks great.

Also stitched out my motif again...not totally freehand. I wanted a stitched out decent sample of this, so I used Golden Threads paper with the motif drawn on it and stitched over it. I love doing that...the noise of the needle going into the paper provides an excellent rhythm to the stitching and I always produce very consistent stitches with the paper. Like it. No major problems with the sweeping curves and the feathers came out decent enough, just have to make up my mind whether I use the backtracking method or just backtrack across the top. Got a bit confused at times. If you can imagine this as a quarter of a motif this actually would look quite nice and there are several possibilities in orientating this. Also would work as a border motif with just two of them either up or down next to each other.

 

I am really enjoying just 'playing' around a bit with different things at the moment as usually I am under some self imposed pressure to work on a major project. This year has been good in that I have been able to truly concentrate on developing my skills in FMQ and to let go of the need to produce quilt after quilt. Mind you, I have spent last weekend washing a whole lot of fabric ready to start a quilt using the 'Sweet Gumleaf' block I was talking about last Sunday. This might be my major project for the next half year if the block works out.

Linking up to UFO Sunday on the Freemotion Quilting Project 


Until next time

Karin