Saturday, December 8, 2018

Saturday update - 12/8/18 -


While I took a little break from blogging this past week -

I played with my Free-motion Quilting -

Trying to find my groove - ;))

First up -

I finished my Autumn Squirrel with the Ugly Christmas Sweater back -

It was small, reversible and didn't need binding -

So it was the perfect choice to start my practice session - ;))


I sewed a wide zig-zag over the opening (that I used to turn it all inside out) in white thread so that I would know where it was when I quilted it from the front - you can't see it very well in this shot -


But it's visible in this one -


And I got pretty dang close to the diagonal line on the other side.  When I realized just how close it was - I marked the ends with pins - removed the white zig-zag stitching and quilted in my name/year using the programmed stitches on my sewing machine and a dark brown thread on top. It's virtually invisible - and it sewed/closed that "opening" perfectly - ;))


Because of the bulk in the corners where the seams come together -

I decided to use my walking foot to quilt straight down the center of each square in each direction - which is my "go-to" on my Upstairs/Downstairs quilts -


I used a brown thread on top and a gold thread in the bobbin -

I like how the thread blends in on the browns -


And the oranges -


And the texture on the back -


Bypassing most of the places where all of those points come together -

Bonus!! - ;))


Then I played with my FMQ on this old practice piece until I ran out of room -



Then switched to another practice piece -

Some loops from the front -


And the back -


A couple of spirals -


And then some more spirals until I finally found my groove - ;))



So then I decided to FMQ my Five Stars Plus 5 using white thread -


"Orange peels" in the checkerboard squares -

Loops in the QST - Hourglass Blocks -


Wavy lines in the HST and corner squares -


More wavy lines in the Flying geese - center squares - and corner HST -

"Orange peels" in the yellow star points -

Little loops in the green -


Let's just say that "matching/blending thread color" is my new BEST friend - LOL -

It hides a LOT of wonky stitching - ;))

My FMQ is not that great yet -

But it IS getting better -

And that's all I really care about - ;))

I still need to bind the last two -

But I have a couple more quilt tops that I want to play with first -

Before I go on a binding spree - LOL - ;))



Talk to you later - gotta go - gotta sew -



3 comments:

Gene Black said...

Yaay! You got back to your quilting groove. It does just take some practice to get going. So if you quilt more right away, then it will get better....but the longer you are "away from it" it seems to diminish.

The quilts look good.

Katie said...

I also like backs that are wild and funky...they also hide a lot of free motion troubles! But your work is looking good...have fun with the binding!

Barb said...

I totally enjoyed reading about your free motion quilting....

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