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

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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.

March Lesson & Giveaway Results

I feel really bad to say that the majority of us seem to shop for fabric online. I'm a bad offender of this. I like the wide range of extra wide backing that is available online and not usually available in a quilt store. I also like the fact I can shop from home at anytime of the day and I don't have to drag the kids along with me!My favorite store is fabric.com for their free shipping, returns policy and lovely customer service.

However I was recently rather stuck with a memorial quilt and I did in fact go to my local specialist fabric store. The thing I found most valuable from my visit was the discussion and ideas given about my project. I felt a lot more confident & prepared to tackle it when I left.

Free Pattern: Circle of Friends Challenge Quilt for Modern Quilts Unlimited

Here are some pictures of a little quilt I quilted for Victoria Findlay Wolfe back in 2015. I recently saw pictures of it hanging in a EZ Simplicity booth at QuiltCon which reminded me I have never shared the pictures.

Never Too Young to Sew

My kids are a little obsessed with learning to sew. I know this is because it is all they see me doing (actually I do every other household activity too - but I sew an awful lot.) I'm sure if I was doing kickboxing they might want to do that too (nah ... they would still just want to make things!) My eldest is 5 now and I have begun to let her use a little sewing machine that my husbands grandmother gave us. She is so cute on it.

We recently made some watercolor dyed wooden blocks for my nephews first birthday. This was a SUPER fun project to do - I took it one step further away from fun though and started to give the kids a detailed lesson in color theory and making new colors ... sorry kids ... Mummy couldn't help herself. (The link is from Fun at Home with Kids which is one of my go to places to find fun to do with the little people - we did it a little differently and used ziploc bags which kept the mess to a minimum and we only needed a very little liquid watercolor.)

The blocks were beautiful - we became entranced and as they dried they became brighter.  How could we package them?

Ruler Work

I understand that you can now use rulers with other machines - not just longarms. I believe Janome now has a ruler foot as well as rumors that Bernina will have a ruler foot soon?

I need help with ruler work - so I tracked down an Handiquilter ruler expert. Debby Brown. When I mean 'track down' - I harassed the poor lady until she gave in. Debby is a busy busy lady teaching all around the world and for Handiquilter and she does a lot of work with her local quilt shop the Quilt Basket in Pawling, NY.

March Lesson (& Giveaway): Choosing Fabric & Batting for Free Motion Quilting

January Lesson: Beginners Guide to Free Motion Quilting
January Roundup: Beginners Guide to Free Motion Quilting - Roundup
February Lesson: Thread
February Lesson: Thread Roundup

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Through my charity Quilting A Memory I get to work with all sorts of fabrics for families who have lost loved ones  I have quilted with everything from mens vests to woolen kilts to satin wedding dresses. So far the only fabric I have had to say no to was a thick toweling dressing gown. So it might not surprise many of you to learn that I am anything but a fabric snob. To me fabric is fabric and fabric can be made into quilts.

I know there is a whole thing over designer fabric versus the cheaper prints you can buy at JoAnn's. But I also know that fabric lines who have produced cheaper fabrics for JoAnn's now have quilt shops begging for the same material.

Again my mantra is - if you like it - use it.

My other mantra is - if you are practicing - don't spend the big bucks. Your neighbors 1 year old baby is not going to notice that the train print is from JoAnn's rather than a designer beauty. Keep it cheap - your whoopsies won't hurt as much. 

FABRIC
From a free motion point of view I can give you the following information with regards to fabric.

February Lesson: Thread & Giveaway Results

Just to recap that the February lesson on Thread is posted here.

Congratulations to Lynn from Nebraska Views - I hope she has lots of fun with those variegated threads. Lynn's name was picked out by the ever trusty online random number selector.

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I just wanted to briefly list all the different threads that people talked about. If there are some brands here you have not heard of - try them - they might surprise you. I list in order of popularity:

Aurifil
Don't forget that Aurifil have threads in lots of different weights of cotton that you can experiment with. I suspect people don't know that they also have a poly made for longarm machines as well as a 100% nylon thread. You can read more about their products here. http://www.aurifil.com/