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 -