April Giveaway Results

I have been beyond busy with piecing and quilting memorial quilts. This is no excuse I know - but honestly it is the only one I have!

In April I showed you how you can make over 100 different quilting designs just by using straight lines. For me it was a really useful exercise - it showed me that you can make so many different designs using one 'element' so to speak. If you are looking to push yourself and your free motion skills doing something like this can really show you how many options there are.

I've also made some similar samplers using just an arc, a loop and a hook. Each sampler showed me how far you could push a design just by using one shape. I hope to share them with you soon (when I have discovered the secret of sourcing more time magically!)

Anyway - enough of my wibbles and excuses. The lucky winner of the book from April - selected by the ever handy Random Number Selector - is Margaret. (Full disclosure Margaret is a member of my our guild the NYC Metro Mod Quilters - but I promise you no bribes were received!) Margaret is more than an amazingly and talented quilter and I know she will do something amazing with the information in this book.

One Line at a Time by Charlotte Warr Andersen is available on Amazon both new and second hand.

April Lesson (& Giveaway) 100+ Straight Line Quilting Designs

January Lesson: Beginners Guide to Free Motion Quilting
January Roundup: Beginners Guide to Free Motion Quilting - Roundup
February Lesson: Thread
February Lesson: Thread Roundup
March Lesson: Choosing Batting & Fabric for Free Motion Quilting

***************

I have never loved to practice at anything much (although I like to practice eating chocolate a lot!) When I discovered FMQ  I found I could spend hours practicing various designs. This post came about because I wanted to make a group of samplers - based on 5 classic shapes which are used over and over again in free motion quilting.

This is not a how too post - I hope that this post encourages you to explore how many designs you can come up with with using 'just straight lines'. "Just straight lines' is a phrase I heard over and over again in the January Lesson. This sampler shows that using 'just straight lines' can make a lot of different quilting patterns. Some are simple - others are more complex and time consuming - but you should never say 'just straight lines' again.

I started thinking I would aim for 40+ different designs but it soon seemed obvious it would be very easy to hit 100. Warning - this is a long post. Many of these patterns are self explanatory. Where another quilter has given a tutorial or published the design I have provided a link.

The sampler was an amazing exercise for me and I feel like I have discovered many more possible designs to use in future quilts. I quilted many of these designs on the sampler for the first time. I would love to hear if you discover any ideas you don't see here. I would also encourage anyone who wanted to expand their FMQ horizons to do a similar sampler for themselves.