November 2015 FMQ Challenge

Managed to finish my pillow on time.

Quiltshopgal's November challenge featured Sarah Vedeler as the expert freemotion quilter. I chose option 4, finally using Sarah's Accuquilt Go 'heather feather #1 cutting die. Now this took me a very long time. I do not do a lot of applique and had to re-acquaint myself with my machine (see post about the tapering function HERE). Also underestimated the time it took to satin stitch around each shape. This literally had to be done at snail pace to get the curves nice and round. I think I started about the middle of November so was starting to feel the pressure.

When it came to the FMQ, I chose to use one of Patsy Thompson's fillers, plumifying around the shapes. I had seen it before in several of her pieces and had tried it a couple of times on little practice pieces. I recently purchased Patsy Thompon's 'Ultimate Freemotion Feathers' on Craftsy...just could not help myself, even though I have her whole Feather DVD collection. Just love her classes and was not disappointed with this one either...always something new to learn. Anyway, in that class she demonstrates the background filler and several variations of it, so I thought I give that a go.

Plumification galore

Bit hard to see on the white backgound but I did struggle a bit with keeping a consistent scale as I was going around the shapes. Like Patsy did say though, it is a very useful filler and lends itself well to filling every available space. This was a great exercise as it is different to fill out an empty little practice space compared to going around various applique shapes. I pretty much did my own thing...you really have to let go of the perceived rules for any FMQ design and find your own rhythm and way.

The back turned out heaps better

Background filler on the back...getting better

Much more consistent and relaxed and considering the space I had to fill it actually went relatively quickly.

Close up

The pillow looks great

Front of the pillow

       

Back of the pillow

And another one for good measure...the latest pillow with some of the other challenge pillows in the backgound.

Completed all but one of the challenges...another one to go. Almost sad to see this challenge end. I must say, I did learn so much over the year.

Linking up to Quiltshopgal's November 2015 FMQ challenge.

Karin