Freemotion Quilting Linky Party

SewCalGal is holding a Freemotion Quilting  Linky Party during January.

I did not officially participate in the 2012 Freemotion Quilting Challenge...not because I did not want to but I just had to restrict myself in terms of the number of things that I was committing myself to at the time. Also, I had just started blogging and I must say, felt somewhat overwhelmed with the variety of projects that were directly speaking to me...a bit of inspiration overload.

I did however follow the Freemotion Quilting Challenge from month to month and did try out a number of things. All the tutorials were of such a high standard and I did learn a lot from them.

Here are some of the things I tried:

Diane Gaudynski's tutorial on feathers was the missing link for me...I finally managed to produce some decent looking feather shapes. Well, maybe not that decent looking in this picture, but I really felt that I was actually getting the shape. Following the tutorial I did continue to practice feathers throughout the year. While I probably still have a way to go, it certainly provided a solid foundation to work from and I did improve over the course of the year. Also discovered that I do better my my Machinger gloves off when I FMQ at a lower speed.

Also tried the Jester design from Wendy Sheppard during the August tutorial.
A fun design which I no doubt will use again.

Angela Walter's tutorial in July inspired me. Her tiling design was interesting and a fun way to jazz things up a bit. I went on a tangent here and ended up getting her book 'Freemotion Quilting'. This was another one of those occasions when things just clicked for me. I practiced the Concentric circles and discovered another one of her designs, the Swirled Hook which I had tried to 'get' unsucessfully for some time...for some reason her illustrations and explanations worked for me and after some practice I can honestly say that I now can do this design in my sleep. A very versatile design that works particularly well in sashings but also as a filler.

Cindy Needham's tutorial in June provided me with the idea to try her simple lines in the background of my little cat wall hanging. What a revelation...this worked fantastic and quickly and efficiently flattened out an area and bonus... looked absolutely stunning. Also taught me to let go of my need to be perfect as the lines are neither completely straight nor consistent.






Well, and then there is this little beauty

The December challenge with Patsy Thompson. I already posted about this before but just had to include this here again. I was so inspired, sat down and literally did this challenge straight away. This, i.e. quilting in borders,  is something I have struggled with for a while in terms of deciding re designs or simply having a go  at something a bit different...I was absolutely amazed at the outcome and am planning to do this again on a bit of a nicer piece of fabric...after doing the first 5 borders I also finally managed to tackle my own personal little challenge: to quilt some continuous feathers all around, something I had wanted to do for a long time and it worked absolutely perfectly. Even did some of Patsy Thompson's in-lining of the feathers and the motif in the middle (her little video was absolutely excellent). This was such a good practice piece to do and I learned heaps from completing it. Needless to say, discovered Patsy Thompson's webpage ...I think there will be a lot more feather quilting coming up for me.

While I have not mentioned all of the tutorials here, there was definitely something from each and every one that I took away, i.e. I just went the other day and bought some black netting to try Don Linn's way of marking designs on fabric...

In terms of tips...I reckon...PPP - Patience, Persistence and Practice.

Thanking SewCalGal and all her contributors for this amazing learning experience. Very much appreciated and I no doubt will continue to refer to the tutorials for as long as they are available on the net. Would encourage anybody to have a go and try out some of the designs or just read up on the advice that is provided in the tutorials. Brilliant.

Linking up to SewCalGal's FMQ Linky Party.


Karin

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

Quilt along #26

Hi all...I am feeling very unproductive compared to some other quilters in blogland. Mind you, I did have one of my migraine episodes over the weekend (why do they always cover the weekend?), so I was not able to do anything. After that we had a school meeting night, then a conference, work etc and that did not leave any time to do anything much.

However I did try the design that Wendy Sheppard demonstrated on SewCalGal's Freemotion Quilting Challenge for the month of August.

This was a fun design to try and definitely something I will use again.

Apart from this I am still going through my phase of confused indecision and lack of inspiration...not sure whether other people experience this when in between projects...nothing really grabs me and I struggle to continue where I left off with other projects. This then in itself becomes a bit of a stressor. Funny enough, this then often becomes the time when I yet again start another project! Figure that one out.

So, I decided to stop stressing, not start something new and do some planning on what to tackle next. As I don't like to sit idle I pulled out my paper piecing project from last year and do some hand sewing. This was sooooo therapeutic...just sitting there with this incredibly fiddly piece of elongated hexagons. I must say I do admire quilters who stitch by hand. When I bought the template for this at one of the shows, the woman had an entire bed quilt made out of these tiny hexagons. No, while I will finish this in the next few weeks, I don't think that I would have that amount of patience. This is incredibly work intensive.

This is what I am talking about

Paper Piecing Project in 2011

I will post some photos of how far I got along in the next few days.

Until then

Karin

Feather Doodling

I have been out of action since last Friday (including all of the weekend) with a mediocre migraine. Not uncommon for me so I take it in my stride. Have not progressed much with any of my projects but managed to do some doodling in some of my lighter moments.

As posted earlier I have been following the 2012 Freemotion Quilting Challenge at SewCalGal and while I am not actively participating I do try a few things here and there. Well, I obviously got the Feather bug (have a look at the great lesson on feathers by Diane Gaudynski featured in February 2012). I started practising some basic feather shapes freehand, concentrating on trying to get the shape right. This, initially did not work for me...my feathers were fairly mis-shapen and looked somewhat like spoons attached to the spine which affected each subsequent feather and the whole thing did not seem to work at all, i.e. as I went up the spine each subsequent feather tended to become even more elongated.

Then, all of a sudden, I seemed to 'get' it. The trick for me was the curve back to the spine and the spacing. I then proceeded to feather doodle over my whole sample and did not have any problems with filling up and evenly spacing my feather shapes along the spine....like magic.

How good does this look?  I was thorougly amazed with this (if I may say so myself)...here is the rest of the sample I doodled on. In the end I literally ran out of space otherwise I would have just continued and this, I guess, is how an addiction starts.

The only other thing to add is: While I am a bit time challenged and hence not able to participate in the Challenge itself I really appreciate  the effort of SewCalGal for organising and hosting this and would encourage others to check it out. But also, how absolutely generous is it of those teachers at the SewCalGal's Freemotion Quilting Challenge to share their time, skills and knowledge with other people across the globe. Sometimes it is just that one little thing or tip that will resonate and have the biggest impact.

Until next time

Karin