2012 Free Motion Quilt Challenge - May

This month's tutorial comes from Leah Day of The Free Motion Quilting Project. Leah has an amazing amount of information on her website. All of her free motion quilt designs have video tutorials and she has a wonderful program, the Free Motion Quilt Along with weekly lessons to help you improve your free motion skills.

For the Free-Motion Quilting Challenge this month, Leah chose two foundational designs for us to practice. The first one is called Double Stippling. To make this design you stitch over your design area using a very large scale stipple. Then you stitch over your design with a smaller scale stipple making sure to fill all the spaces. 

The second design is called Railroad Tracks. Like the first design you start by stitching a large scale stipple. Instead of wiggling back and forth over your wavy line, you use just straight lines and sharp angles creating what looks like railroad tracks. This was a much more difficult design to stitch. Not all my lines are straight and not all my angles are sharp. It took a lot more effort to think ahead so that the spacing would be consistent and all the areas would be filled in. But with each practice it got better. I think this design would be so cute on a little boy's quilt. 

I can't wait to see what next month's tutorial will be!

2012 Free Motion Quiltig Challenge - April

I'm really learning a lot from this challenge. This month's tutorial was by Don Linn. Don gave a video tutorial demonstrating how to transfer and mark designs. The first step was to choose a design. I chose to use the design that Don provided with the tutorial although any design could have been used. This looks like a simple design but there's a lot of backtracking in it. Another thing I need to practice.

 The next step is to stretch a piece of tulle in an embroidery hoop and trace the design onto the tulle using a permanent marker.

Here it is with just a blank sheet of paper underneath to make the design more visible. 

Then,  place the embroidery hoop with the marked tulle over your fabric and trace your design onto the fabric using your favorite marking pencil. I used a water soluble marker.

And, here is my sample after quilting and washing out the marker. 

I'm getting this done and submitted at the last minute, so I just did the basic design. I wanted to add some outline quilting and some background fill around it, but I'm barely getting this done in time so I didn't. 
I think this is a great technique, especially if you're wanting to mark a design multiple times on the same quilt. 

SBS - Clay's Choice

Another simple block for this week. This is Clay's Choice.

SBS - Yankee Puzzle

The last couple of blocks have been a little on the challenging side so I did a simpler block this week. It went together in a snap.

Fiesta de Talavera - Block 2

I've finished block 2! This is such a fun project to hand applique. There are a lot of pieces in each block (this one has 125) and they take a little time, but the majority of them have easy, gentle curves making them perfect for time in front of the TV. I really like working with these bright colors against the dark background. It's so much fun to see the block coming together as I'm working on it.

SBS - New Mexico

The block I chose this week is called New Mexico. The more I work with little pieces, the more I realize I need more practice working with little pieces. The rail fence blocks were actually paper-pieced in long strips and then sub-cut. The same with the nine patch blocks. That helped quite a bit since this is basically a 25-patch block done in 6 inches. That makes for some tricky measurements.




I've mentioned before my journey with Sylvia's Bridal Sampler.  I'm glad to be back on track and am looking forward to having it done. This week's block is number 100! Only 40 more blocks to go! Some time ago I made a graph and have been inserting pictures of the blocks as I do them. Mostly I use this to keep track of the fabrics I'm using so that I don't use the same fabrics in blocks that are next to each other. But I also like seeing how the spaces are filling up. As I insert the pictures some of the blocks get cropped. I don't know why. But, you can get an idea of how this quilt is shaping up.

SBS - Laurel Wreath

This block was a little challenging. I don't usually draw seam lines when I piece, but I did on this one because of all the Y seams. I think it made a world of difference in getting everything to line up just so.

March UFO

Back in 2007, my LQS in Albuquerque did this quilt as a Saturday Sampler. The name of the quilt is Ramblin' Rose Meets Jamestown. The quilt was designed by Marti Michell using her template sets. While it takes a bit more time to cut the pieces using the templates, I think you make up for it with how easy the pieces go together. Some of these blocks would have been very challenging with regular piecing, but with the templates they went right together. I have a couple of other quilts I'd like to make using the templates - someday. The sampler blocks were named to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Jamestown settlement - New Colony, Roanoke Island, John Smith, and Stormy Voyage, to name a few. I had no idea when I started this quilt that I'd one day be living in Virginia.

I got all my blocks made and even had all 24 of the log cabin blocks done by the end of that year. In early 2008, I assembled the blocks and that was as far as I got. For the UFO Challenge, my goal was just to get the borders on. I've also made the binding and have fabric set aside for the backing, but that's all I'll be able to do for a while. This is a king size quilt measuring 104" square. I have an older machine with a very small throat and there is just no way that I can fit a king size quilt in there to get it quilted. I hope to get a new machine in the next year or two. The quilt has been waiting this long, it can wait a little longer.

2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge - March

This month's tutorial was given by quilt artist, Ann Fahl. Ann's tutorial was packed with information, but what stuck out to me the most was her advice to add motifs to meandering and stippling designs to make them more interesting. And, one of her tips is to start a quilting design notebook and practice doodling in it. To get us started, she shared a few designs with loops, hearts, stars, spirals and flowers.

I don't think I practiced drawing this month as much as last month's feathers. I've had a couple of other projects that I've been working on and getting the challenge done kept taking a back seat.

I practiced drawing all of the above designs, but chose to quilt the flowers and spirals. I like these meandering flowers. I think they'd be cute on a little girl's quilt or a spring quilt. Looking at the picture I can see where I need to vary the direction just a little bit.

I had done some spirals on a quilt not too long ago, but they were large spirals with a little space between them. I decided I'd try working on smaller, more tightly-packed spirals. Getting the spacing was pretty tricky.

I know I need to spend more time practicing. This challenge is giving me a lot more quilting confidence. Maybe that stack of tops will get quilted sooner than I think.

SBS - Glorified Nine Patch

The block I chose to do this week is Glorified Nine Patch. I really love this block. I hope to do a whole quilt in this block one day. If I do, the blocks will be larger than 6" though. There were two different methods for assembling this block. One was to use templates and do curved piecing. The other was to assemble an uneven nine patch and applique the long curved pieces. Can you guess which method I chose? I really like how it came out. If I were to do a whole quilt I think I'd go with the templates though.