So Inspired/ Confront your Fears

I am so addicted to FMQ.

I would like to share something with you I have been working on over the last week or so. I have been following the Freemotion Quilting Challenge over at SewCalGal this year, visiting the tutorials every month and trying a few things here and there. Time wise I was unable to take up the challenge on a regular basis and given that I had also just started blogging, it all felt a bit overwhelming. Mind you just following along I picked up a few tips here and there...the tutorials were all very inspiring and I learned something from each and every one.

Then this month came along with the Patsy Thompson's tutorial...one look and I was hooked. And when I say hooked, I mean it. Her tutorial is about FMQ in borders, something that I have struggled with for a long time, reverting back to the same old designs I do most of the time because I know I can do them. I often get annoyed about this as I rarely try something different and when I do it is always a drama, requiring major marking or extraordinary math skills. I usually stand in front of my borders absolutely clueless and end up opting out of a more challenging design because I have convinced myself that I cannot do it.

I read through the challenge and decided to give this a go, even though I will not be participating obviously in the last month...but I thought I will do this just for me to confront some of those fears around borders. And what a challenge it was...tiny 1/2inch borders to start with. Would have never occurred to me to FMQ in such a small space, let alone do a design in it that I am not used to. I was so tense with concentration that my hands hurt after the first border...had to laugh at that and made a mental note telling myself that this was just practice and really did not matter how it turned out.

Took it easy after that, taking some time in doing the borders and also watched the video that Patsy Thompson included in her tutorial...very informative. A few future purchases (DVDs) coming up for me, I think. Have a look at her website Patsy Thompson Designs. Lots of very interesting things on there.

Anyway, here is my little project

SewCalGal Freemotion Quilting Challenge - Patsy Thompson tutorial

Not quite finished...have one more border to go and might practice a few more feathers in there as I am a bit wobbly with that in terms of making up my mind about what method of stitching I am using, i.e. backtracking along the length of the feather or over the top.  How beautiful is this! And I used the ugly brown fabric thinking this would just be practice...funny how things sometimes just work out.

The motif in the middle is done freehand, with having lightly marked the square with horizontal, vertical and diagonal registration lines and then just allowing the shapes to develop. I was very happy with the outcome and amazed how my FMQ skills have developed over the year. With that confidence I tackled the borders. None of this is perfect...far from it, but it looks really pretty and the flaws will only be noticed by seriously looking for them. The wavy feather border tested my drawing skills, however once I had the waves on there it was relatively easy to follow this. Absolutely love the effect of this.

A big thank you to SewCalGal for hosting these tutorials over the year and also Patsy Thompson for this excellent tutorial.

Karin