Learning to Free Motion Quilt

 Image from TerifiCreations (Teri Lucas)

I am currently taking some free motion quilting lessons with Teri Lucas. Teri is lovely and she is cheering me on.

Despite the projects I seem to take on these days - I have not been free motion quilting for very long.  Here is my complete history of free motion quilting. And Teri - I'm scared you might be reading this - I really haven't quilted very much at all!

I took my first lesson in 2007 which in truth freaked me out and I didn't go back to it before stippling a small makeup case in 2009.

At the time I was extremely pleased with myself - but I have to admit I had trouble posting this picture at all!

I then began popping out babies and concentrate largely on my knitting skills (I just love to knit!) Any quilts I made I just opted to sew in the ditch or tie. I was still very scared of free motion quilting.

Then in 2012 (yes it took me 3 years to try this again) I took a leap of faith and made a playmat for a cousin and quilted it by stippling.

 

Then later in 2012 I made a memory quilt for a 90th birthday celebration. This was a monster sized quilt - I must have been crazy to take it on.

In these 3 widely spaced projects I could already see a vast improvement in my stippling. This year I have completed the following projects.

Valentine Quilt with quilted swirls.

Mother's Day Pillows with quilted swirls & Teacher Appreciation Pillows with quilted echoed hearts.

Fallen Soldier Quilt - stippled.

and our first in a series of Kid Painted Quilts quilted with swirly flowers.

That's it. Not too much experience really. And this was a good post for me to write as it reminds me that I have come a long way with not so much experience. So tomorrow when I sit down to fight with an amazing project I am honored to be working .... I will remind myself. I am getting better - but it takes practice. Hours and Hours of practice .... and I am on a total mission to conquer this free motion quilting!

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Please do not forget about the charity I Spy quilt - we are still looking for scrap fabric donations. 

Motivation

I'm lacking in motivation. I think because the only real time I get to myself is nap time. Once both girls are quiet and resting it leaves me with a small window of time which I 'have' to use for crafting else I go a little crazy with a feeling of not having achieved anything for myself. I'm beginning to resent that pressure to sit down and be creative at that very moment - sometimes I'm just not in the mood and sometimes I'm just bit mentally exhausted from having battled with two gorgeous - but sometimes unreasonable - bunny's all morning and I just want an hour of mindless anything ... so I've be rebelling by filling nap times with other delightful activities such as laundry, cleaning, emptying and refilling the dishwasher ...

This is not a productive mindset ... I have projects I want to make/do/achieve falling out my ears.

But I have been doing some sewing. I've finished the top of my Valentine Quilt. I'm not convinced by the quilts size - so I sewed all the scrappy strips left over together in hopes to make a border for the quilt ... ... it all looked a little odd when I laid everything together so I made one of these long strips into this little baby mat/quilt (still to be quilted.) It has cute scrappy corners.
My other idea is to turn the Valentine Quilt into a picnic blanket by using some laminated cotton or a poly-laminate on the back ... I like this idea ... and I think it would be something we might use a lot.

Every evening I try and tackle a little bit of my paper pieced quilt. It is coming along - I don't want to paper piece the entire quilt - but use hand quilting to emboss unpatched areas of the quilt and maybe have scattered paper pieced blocks throughout the quilt top too ... ... I haven't quite decided on exactly how it is all going to come together ... but I have a vague vision at least ... somewhere over the top of that never ending laundry basket!!

I'm also making some more art smocks - birthday presents for little people. I beginning to like mixing up bright colors for these smocks - the color splashes seem adapt for little budding artists. I'm often much to shy with color - something I'm really trying to get better with.

WIP: Quilt update

I've been making progress on my scrappy Valentine Quilt (Elizabeth Hartman.) I'm really pleased how it is looking. Here it is all laid out - ready to be sewn together. You make the blocks by sewing strips onto a piece of square paper - trim the block - remove the backing paper and then sew all the blocks together. Elizabeth H. warns you that as the edges of the blocks have been cut on the bias they will be prone to stretching when you sew them together - so I kept the paper backing on while sewing the blocks together. It has been working really well - no stretching - my blocks are still squares.

I found this wonderful pillow from Little Blue House on a Hill - which seems like a great idea for a smaller project using this technique/pattern.
This is a peek at the first half that has been sewn all together. I used up so many scraps - greatly pleased with finally using some up. But I'm just terrified of the prospect of quilting the beast ... I will let you know when it is finished.