FMQ Challenge for August

Here we are in August already and another Free Motion Quilting challenge slides under the needle.

This month our teacher was Wendy Sheppard who gave us a fun little "Jester's Hat" pattern to try.  It looks pretty simple and straightforward, but it is a tricksy little rascal! 

I started out trying to draw it, and only started to make anything worth looking at after 4 pages of tangled spaghetti -

and even then I knew I didn't quite "get" it, but I went to the sewing machine to see what would happen.

I kept getting lost/stuck and throwing in random plumes and curves and points just to try to get out of a tight spot.  Kind of lost the little hats, but it looks pretty cool anyhow.

Then, as I was looking at this sample, I realized a simple fact.

The second tassel of the hat (the one that's round like a little pom-pom) is actually the first tassel (the pointy one) of an upside down hat!  

Big light bulb moment.  

You can see what I mean on the bottom of this closeup (from my second sample), as the hat on the lower left magically turns into the upside down hat going off diagonally in the lower right.

Then each point (on the end of a tassel or in the center of the hat) becomes a pivot to move the next part of a hat where you need it to be.  

Just make sure that when you place the "pom pom", you have enough room to swing that next tassel out somewhere.

As you can also see in the closeup, I still need to work on even stitch length (matching hand speed with machine speed).  Right now, I guess I can only think about one detail at a time!

So here is my second sample, in which I finally have little Jester's Hats!  (I washed this one after quilting, so it's a bit wrinkly just now - just click on the photo for a closer look to get past the wrinkles.)

Fabric is quilting weight solids, thread is Sulky Blendables 30 weight cotton #4108 American Antique (on the blue) and Sulky 40 weight Rayon #1021 Maple (on the black), needle is 90/14 topstitch, batting is Hobbs 80/20 cotton/poly.

And thanks again to SewCalGal for hosting this great challenge!  

Every month is a new adventure!