Free Motion Quilting Challenge

Back in October, I gave a brief presentation at quilt guild about the machine quilting classes I'd taken (see previous post for info on classes), and later a fellow quilter, Joanna, sent me info about SewCalGal and her Free-Motion Quilting Challenge (thanks Joanna, and thanks SewCalGal!) and since I needed to work on my FMQ skills, I took the pledge and joined up.  

In this challenge, a different well-known and generous expert quilter will give some kind of instruction/quilting pattern/tutorial/new technique each month, and everyone is to practice and post their efforts.  This month, Frances Moore gave us a video of how to do a heart-shaped leaf fill pattern, so here it is.  

First was to practice the pattern by drawing it out.

(not quite as heart-shaped as it should be, but close)

Next was to try it out - (starts in the upper left corner).

OK, so the leaf shape gets a little wonky, and the leaf size is pretty varied, and the fill doesn't really flow well, but it's not horrible (and yes, I threw in some random spirals in a moment of frustration - an extra pattern from Frances' blog), and my thread tension was good, mostly, so there's hope for the future.

Then, after reading Leah's blog post about quilting in quadrants (more about her and the Free Motion Quilting Project in my next post), I tried again.

I really liked the quadrants - I didn't have to worry about where to go next, and it was much easier to find a flow with this method.  However, I found that when I was concentrating on the quadrant, I lost the heart shape and went back to my default leaf shape (from the baby quilt).

So I drew another page of heart leaves and tried stitching again.

Now I've mostly got the heart shape back, but my size is random again!  Oh well, that's what practice is for!

Having fun, anyhow!

The Baby Quilt is DONE!

And here it is, just in time for her first birthday!

This quilt for my new granddaughter has been quite a journey!
The design process started more than a year ago (before she was even born) with research into baby quilts designs, input from my son and daughter-in-law, info about applique quilts, butterfly quilts, butterfly shapes, elephant shapes, and layout ideas, and then lots of fabric selections and rejections (well, the rejections went into my nearly non-existent stash, so that's OK).

And then, since I didn't know anything about applique, I had to take a class - this was a class given by the very talented Judy Dohm at the Stitchin' Girls Society retreat on Vashon (don't blame her for my choice of fabrics!).


Of course this was needle-turn (hand sewing) applique, and I needed to do machine applique for the baby quilt, but the basic techniques that I learned from Judy - making and marking, layering, positioning, and so on - served me well (besides, her class was just plain fun - I'll have to do more with needleturn eventually!).
I got the rest of what I needed from books (especially Mastering Machine Applique by Harriet Hargrave).

And then I started making sample blocks (the kitty helped a lot).


So here it is in process with some finished and unfinished blocks, and some blocks that would later be rejected (I've got lots of these rejects - I'm hoping I can get them to blend with each other into a different project!)


And after much sampling and many trips back to the quilt store for new/different fabrics, finally a version I could be happy with - the shapes are mostly clear, the colors and color weights are mostly balanced, and it looks whimsical and happy as well as being sweet and girly, mostly!

Not satin-stitched down yet (used a narrow band of Steam-a-Seam 2 light to hold the pieces in place) but design layout is mostly done now.

While I was working this through, however, I needed to learn how to quilt the final product (being a total beginner and all) so I took a machine quilting class (this is for using your home sewing machine to do amazing things) from Darlene Girton (great teacher - clear instruction, well organized info, encouraging and helpful) at the Quilting Loft in Seattle.

Wow did I learn a lot (and more than just these 4 samples, too!) - starting and stopping, using the walking foot (in the ditch, zigzags, rays, grids, interlocking circles), tension adjustment, dropping feed dogs and using free motion embroidery (scribbles, outlines, echos, stippling, fills) - yikes! Great class lesson book - Machine Quilting Made Easy by Maurine Noble.

So then I took another (and much more intense and scary) class over at Quiltworks Northwest in Bellevue from Harriet Hargrave and worked with marked patterns, pieced blocks, and even did a feathered wreath! Much harder, but a great class!


Whew! So back to the baby quilt - just two weeks before the party, I finally found the perfect border fabric and backing so here it is, appliques are satin stitched, blocks are sewn together, and borders are applied.

And here are some close-ups of the finished blocks with embroidered details and free motion quilting - leaves and flowers (these are not in order, so the designs will not flow from one picture to the next - go back to the beginning of the post to see the overall effect).




Then I picked out a different pattern for the border (still leaves and flowers, but different, a bit).

and here's a peek at that perfect backing fabric

And one more closeup look at a section of the quilt top (draped on the sofa)

This is a quilt of firsts for me - my first applique, my first embroidery, my first free motion quilting, and my son's first baby! I'm happy.

next up - the Free Motion Quilting Challenge from SewCalGal! If you're a quilter, it's not too late to join (actually, there's no pressure to produce, there's lots of great info and generous quilter-teachers, and it will go on all year, so give it a try!)

Indigo Dye Day and Shibori Weaving

Indigo Dye Day and Shibori Weaving, a set on Flickr.

The Vashon Spinners Rock and the Vashon Rigid Heddle Weavers have an indigo dye day - handspun yarns, carded fibers, silk scarves, and Shibori woven scarves all go in the pot and turn blue!

OK, the pictures are really small here, but if you click on the link to the flickr set, the pictures are bigger and if you look at each one individually, it has a caption - and there are a lot more pictures! (This "share this on blog" business is a little limited, it seems to me)