August 2015 FMQ Challenge

Finished with a week to spare!

This month' expert was Angela Walters and I chose two options. For the front of the pillow I used some of the concepts discussed in her Craftsy class 'Machine Quilting: Small Changes, Big Variety'.
I concentrated on lesson 2 of the class  exploring the swirl in some detail...

This turned out quite striking...I love stitching with light thread on a dark background. Somehow my stitches turn out heaps better that way. If you want to read about the process of getting this done, please see my Post 'Progress on Pillow' below. I used 50wt Aurifil thread (#2000-Light Sandstone) with a 70/10 Sharp needle for the quilting.

The back of the pillow falls into Option 2...I could say that I chose this, however I more or less stumbled into this. Looking at the Angela Walter's book 'Shape by Shape', I remembered that apple core shape that I acquired doing one of Kim Bradley's classes some years ago. Using this, I then filled the alternate shapes with more of the swirls, given that I was having a bit of a swirl theme going on. I think that this would also look quite effective if you put a small stipple in there.

Also discovered something extraordinarily useful for getting rid of the white chalklines from my pencil...the top of the Machingers gloves, where it is more closely knitted for the wrist. Just using that part and lightly going over the lines, they disappeared with ease. Who would have thought!

Linking up to 2015 FMQ Challenge at Quiltshopgal. Make sure you have a bit of a look around...there is some fantastic freemotion quilting going on.

Karin

Progress on Pillow

Still working away on my pillow for the August 2015 FMQ Challenge at Quiltshopgal

This is the 8th pillow for this year...I am determined to keep up with the monthly challenges and so far have not missed a month. This has meant that I have not produced quite as much as I would have liked this year due to having to interrupt what I am doing to get going on the next pillow. However, I  am treating this challenge as an opportunity to learn and I would highly recommend these online challenges to all of those who have an interest in FMQ. Even though I am quite good at FMQ I get so much out of this ...being introduced to new experts, new designs, having to plan around designs, practicing grids, filling in odd spaces, blasted zippers, trying out new threads etc.  I particularly like this challenge, as Darlene from Quiltshopgal is giving different options each month so that there is something for everybody, experienced or just starting out. If you are reading this and just starting out you might want to have a look at this challenge...the link up for the completed pillows is open now until the end of the month.

Anyway, worked away on the front of the pillow, filling in the last panel of my little design.

Now this was not that easy and required some additional planning as I was unfamiliar with Angela Walters flower filler. Started off and had to stop for a while, drawing on paper to try to figure out how to quilt this. I have Angela Walters Craftsy class ' Small Changes, Big Variety'. When watching this I noticed that Angela Walters quilts her feather shapes different to me. I will quilt towards me, starting the feather on the curvature - while I can also go backwards, I always start with the curvature. Angela Walters can do them starting on the other side and going backwards...quite amazing! Now I tried this, but my brain could not cope, so I had to stick to my way of doing the feathers and have a bit of a think about which side I was going to end up on and which side I actually needed to be at. This took a little bit more planning than usual and I drew lots of A4 pages with various variations of the design.

Here is the end result

 Was very happy with this as all this drawing enabled me to actually get a really good hang of the larger feather filler...in the end I was able to fill a whole A4 page just with that and it looked fabulous. For this piece though I returned to the flower filler. I think that flower filler looks better when it is done with a blend in thread so you focus on texture. I started off a bit small but the flowers towards the top were spaced a bit nicer...all great learning.

Then I tackled the back. Decided to use my apple core shape (KimBradleydesigns 4.5")...finally using some of the many templates lying around here. When I attended a workshop with Kim Bradley a couple of years ago, this was one of the designs we practiced.

Very versatile as you can use the walking foot to do this...however, I was too lazy to reset my machine and freemotionquilted the lines which went just as quickly, if not quicker.

 Decided to continue with the swirl theme and filled every alternate shape. Hilarious...in every shape I was trying to come up with a particular way of doing it and every single one is quilted differently.

This was good fun...now I just have to put it altogether and put a zipper in. Very productive day.

Linking up to Let's Bee Social Linky Party to have a look what the rest of the quilting world is up to.

Karin

FMQ Away

Working on my pillow for the 2015 FMQ Challenge at QuiltShopGal

Choose black calico to do my FMQ on...I like stitching with light thread on dark fabric. However, I noticed that I am a bit out of practice...some of my stitching is positively wonky, Never mind, it's the effect we are going for.

Had trouble with the swirls, just did not flow properly...but anyway, it did get done and now I only have the right side to do. Planning on some of Angela Walters flower filler, interpersed with some feathery bigger shapes. We shall see.

Until next time

Karin