Making some progress

A three-day weekend--time to get some things accomplished at home, like basting this quilt top that I made last March/April. Finally. I started the FM quilting on it, too. It's a Judy Niemeyer quilt pattern, Total Eclipse.

The directions in the pattern are kind of overwhelming--so I took a class at Sew Original in Winston-Salem and was glad I did. Lucille Amos, a certified instructor, made the directions seem simple.

I like paper piecing a lot, and this quilt was actually pretty easy to put together.

And I finished up this little quilt, too. Here it is laying in my driveway this morning, I was taking the picture right around 7:15 a.m. so thie light isn't great, but better than inside my house.

I added striped sashing after I had completed the FM quilting because I just wasn't thrilled by the quilt. It was top-stitched on using a decorative stitch--and I used the same stripe for the border.

Free Motion Quilting Month #1

I decided to do this FM quilting challenge on something I'm already working on, instead of creating a new sampler or just working on a small sample. Free motion quilting is something I've been doing (and loving!) for a couple of years now, it's the reason I make things--so I can FM quilt them.

Here is my leaf shape, done on a piece of hand-dyed fabric so that the stitching is kind of hard to see:

I tried to take a picture offset from the side, too, as I was having trouble getting it to show up well. I used a 50-weight thread from Connecting Threads in a dark green:

One more picture--

These are other parts of the piece I'm quilting. I used more threads from Connecting Threads, as well as some other threads I had (Aurifil, Mettler, YLI Soft Touch) in matching colors.

I'm just trying out some different patterns, I like working on smaller pieces that are part of a larger one so I can practice a certain shape or pattern in a small scale.

I'll take a picture of the whole piece as soon as I get a chance to bury the thread tails and wash those chalk pencil marks off.



I think this one is my favorite design:

If you want more information on the Free Motion Challenge project, or want to join in yourself, head on over to SewCalGal's blog!

No more laziness for 2012

If I was the kind of person to make resolutions, this year's would be "no more laziness"! It's too easy to sit down in the evening after a long day of work and just think about what I want to work on, not actually do it. So, I've joined two different quilt-alongs for the new year, one called "12 For 2012", and another called the "Free Motion Quilting Project". Combining these will work out great, as I have a huge pile of Unfinished Objects, mostly quilt tops that need quilting, and I love to work on Free Motioning. Buttons for each are on the right-hand side of my blog if you want to check them out.

For the "12 in 2012", all you have to do is commit to is finishing 12 UFOs in 12 months. Hopefully I'll be able to--it sounds easy now, but we all know what happens...

Here is my first project, started yesterday! This top has been hanging around for a couple of years now, it's about 40 x 40", and will make a great beach blanket for baby Madelyn. I free motioned some big daisies on it, then filled in with leaves and other shapes. All I need to do now is bind it and it's done.

I'll sew the binding on by machine instead of hand-sewing, since it's faster, and will hold up better to lots of washing.

For Christmas, I got a gift certificate for Connecting Threads. I never ordered from them before, but they had thread sets on sale (40% off) when I checked their website Tuesday night. I ordered a set of 15 colors, plus some fabrics that were all less than $3.00/yard, and they all arrived yesterday. Hopefully, by the end of 2012, there won't be any of this thread left!

My next UFO project is all ready to be quilted--I marked it with a chalk pencil yesterday, trying to decide how to quilt it, but I'll probably change my mind and improvise as I go along.