Have you checked out this yet?

http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/p/free-motion-quilt-challenge.html

It looks to be quite an experience and an excellent learning opportunity.  We should all sign up!

-Wendy

Machine Quilting Made Easy by Maurine Noble

Even though this book was published in 1994, I just bought it two weeks ago.

 

Maurine Noble's book has lots of good information.  The exercises are well written and easy to follow.  There are even quilting tools I have never used or even heard of.   Behold the "Quilt Tak"

I have to get one these!  I would recommend this book for everyone who likes to machine quilt.

In my craft emporium, I have been working on leaves and feathers.

This leaf was traced onto parchment paper from "Machine Quilting Made Easy".

 Notice the pin basting.  Soon I'm going to own a Quilt Tak tool.

I always test seams before sewing or quilting anything.  I'm trying hard to bond with my beautiful Pfaff QE 4 sewing machine affectionately named "Big Bertha".  I bought it in March 2009, Big Bertha has had lots of issues with tension, threads breaking, thread cutter not working, most of these problems happen when free motion quilting. The Pfaff QE 4 has two free motion quilting feet.  One is Sensor Motion and the other is Spring Motion.  The photo below shows the sensor motion foot and I cut the middle of the plastic ring out for better visibility.  When I got my machine there wasn't a sensor motion open toe foot, now one can be purchased from the Pfaff dealer for $44.95 CAD.

This is the back side of my scrap to set tension.  I used purple thread for all the free motion quilting using the sensor foot.

Parchment paper is easy to trace with and sew through.  I find removing it is a bit finicky.  But I prefer using parchment paper to marking the fabric.

 

My favourite kind of free motion quilting is free hand.  So on this practice piece, I made one leaf with parchment paper and doodled the rest of the top.

I need to practice taking photos of my sewing machine needle area.  Big Bertha has duel lights which is great for sewing, not good for taking photos.  As you can see, there is too much shadow.

The photo below was taken with the sewing machine turned off and using a flash on the camera.  It is much clearer.

When I switched to open the toe spring motion foot, I changed the thread colour to a variegated thread that is red, orange and yellow.

 

I don't think there is much difference in the stitch quality between the sensor motion and spring motion quilting feet. 

 

The back fabric is plain white.

Leaves, feathers and loop-d-lous meandering all over the place.

 I really like the way the variegated thread looks.

Sure wish I could draw better with the sewing machine and a pencil.

 

 

I think I'll bind it and use it as a place mat.

More than anything else, mastering free motion quilting takes practice, practice and more practice!

 

 Have a super duper day all and quilt something!

Tammy

Champagne Sunday

I finished my table topper, Champagne Sunday.  And it’s Sunday, too!  How about that.  Bright and cheery for any day (even a cloudy one like today).  I tried some new stuff with this little quilt, including stitching alongside another row of stitches, using the FMQ foot as a guide.  As you can see, I didn’t do so well at that.  It’s amusing, looking at this all the way around, you can see how I get better at it on each border.  Very marked where the last border meets the first.  I just recently bought a Juki TL 98Q after working with a Janome 423S (their very bottom end machine) for a bit over a year.  I can’t stress how much easier it was to FMQ with a sewing machine that is made for quilting. 

 

I love this quilt.  I truly do.  It’s based on a Katharine Guerrier design.

Enjoy the day.  I’m off to do some writing.

-Wendy

Finished

Mom’s quilt is finally done!!!  Now on to other things.

-Wendy

Americana Patriotic Star Wall Hanging...

Some Free Motion quilting was done today to finish this wall hanging...

Here's a close up of some of the FMQing...

I can tell that I havn't been doing as much as I should...but I do enjoy it! However, I'm not sure I'd want to do FMQing on a full size quilt...Hmm, I'll have to ponder that one!

If you want to see a few more pictures of this wall hanging, visit my blog at http://www.homedesignsbyamanda.blogspot.com/ I'd love to have you click over...

Amanda

Fun FMQing...

This Patio Table centerpiece...

has been a long time in progress...I believe I did this FMQing in June...it was alot of fun. The cute flowers and squiggly lines are some of my favorite things to draw...so why not quilt with them too!

Today I hope to FMQ some leaves onto some (masculine) coasters that are belated Father's Day gifts. Hope everyone is having a great summer...and staying (at least) somewhat cool!
Amanda
www.homedesignsbyamanda.blogspot.com

Family

Some photos of the past weekend

Sorry - I posted this in the wrong spot - but will leave it here for now - this is really in my joanatleschenault.blogspot.com blog

Andrea and her brother Patrick busy in the kitchen

Andrea cooking Monday nights dinner...she did a great job!

The wine was mine - not hers :)

Good news and bad.

The good news is Mal at last has an answer to his pain problem...the bad news is it  a benign tumor in his spine.  The Doctor doesnt think its malignant as he would have been paralized by now...

but he needs an operation ASAP to prevent that happening,so that is in the very near future.

As the tunour is growing - the pain is worse each day.

So ... sewing time is still a mystery to me  as I still have my Nurses hat on ..but  I am intending to try to get to the FNSI at least.

When Andrew was here over the weekend, we were telling him about our frog that spent any sunshine during the day sitting on the rocks...

So he named it Vodka - on the rocks :) :)

Vodka is very timid and jumps in the pond if he sees us coming.

Also doing an online QW couse , which is again time. 

My apologies if I have not answered some comments...

Catch up again if I actually get something done :)

Baltimore Album Finished

Ok so the main reason I joined the challenge was to get good enough with the FMQ skills to quilt my Baltimore Album by myself on my little ol' DMS.  And guess what I finally finished.  After over 3 years, it's done, woohooo!  Now time to move on to something  a bit easier for while!

Still FMQing

I’m still working on Mom’s quilt.  I’ve finished all the feathers inside the wreaths. 

Now I’m working on the setting triangles.  I’ve fallen in love with this quilt.  I see one in my future.

What are you working on?

-Wendy

Finally got the nerve to start quilting the Baltimore Album Quilt

This quilt was sandwiched for 2 weeks before I finally put a stitch in it.  I knew I wanted twirly feathers around the outside as fill and some sort of McTavishing on the inner applique (really loosely interpreted for me!).    And I finally sent the husband out on a 40 mile bike ride, it was just me and the quilt.  It had to happen!  I drew a few veins and the rest is history, it is started.  Oh my why are those first few stitches so hard?  Why is it so hard to commit to a design (maybe cuz you don't know what the design is???) and start sewing.  Once the first stitches are in, well you're committed.  I don't take quilting out, I just live with whatever got started.  Lucky for me, I'm fairly pleased with what got started.  I have 4 blocks done, here's the first.