Ruth's day 14

Yesterday was day 14 for me and I didn't get to the quilting until kind of late, so I didn't post it yesterday.  This morning, I did some more quilting early and finished the border of my quilt!  Woo Hoo!  I am a lot more confident and feel that if I can see good examples of how to quilt designs, I should be able to do them.  I don't plan to do real fancy quilting, because at this stage, I still need a lot more experience.

Thank you so much for the challenge!  It was just what I needed as I wanted feathers in the border and didn't know how they were going to get there.  (No quilting fairies were appearing).  I will return to this site often to view the examples that are here for ideas in the future.

Ruth's Day 13

Continuing to quilt the border of the basket quilt. You are probably sick of seeing it by now. I'm hoping to finish the border tomorrow which will be my last day of the challenge. After finishing the challenge I'm not sure if I will continue finishing this quilt because I will be getting ready for a 3 month trip. I'm getting a lot of fabric cut for piecing on my featherweight as well as hand work to do in the truck.

Keep quilting!

Ruth's Day 12

I started quilting early today and got quite a bit done on the second half of my basket quilt.  The practice has really paid off, however, I'm kind of happy that these feathers are in the border of the quilt and most people who might see it probably won't examine them.  In other words, it's not going into a show!  I've had some trouble with thread breaking, but when I switched to Dual Duty thread it didn't break at all.  I was using Aurifil and had trouble with that.  I wonder if it's because I spray basted the quilt?  

I'm really glad I have taken the challenge.  I've learned a lot from the daily practice and seeing other examples of quilting patterns is really good also.  It's a place to come to for ideas.

Ruth's Day 10 & 11

I worked on finishing my second wall hanging yesterday and today.

This is just a few stitches on scraps trying out some other feathers.

Ruth's days 8 & 9

I worked on the border to my basket quilt yesterday and today.  I finished about half of it.  I layered the quilt in 2 pieces so I wouldn't have the whole quilt to work on with my small sewing machine.  At least this half is finished!

Today I'm getting together with two quilters that I met via blogging!  Gotta go get ready.

Ruth's Day 7

I can't believe I'm half way through the challenge!  I think I am ready to try to start quilting feathers on the border of my basket quilt.  Tomorrow I'm going to try it.

These two are continuation of the 2nd wall hanging.  I just need to do the border and I'm going to set it aside a little while.  

Keep practicing everyone!

RUTH'S DAY 6

Here's more feathers and stippling on another wall hanging just like yesterday's.  I think I am getting comfortable enough to begin quilting feathers on my basket quilt pretty soon.  I have a question.  With a 7 1/2" border, how much of it would you fill in with feathers?  I plan to make a wavy line then a half circle on the corners.  Would about 4 1/2 or 5" width of feathers be good?

 I took these pictures in the sunshine because it showed up better.

Have fun FMQing!

Ruth's Day 5

Today I finished the stippling on this wall hanging and quilted around the borders.    I'll be quilting on another one just like it tomorrow.  More practice for me!

Ruth's Day 4

This is a wall hanging that I have made before.  I bought the fabric a few years ago and got enough to make a bunch of these.  I have given some away and sold some.  I want one for myself.  Usually, I do quilted stippling inside the dark blue border - which is most of the quilt.  This time I decided to quilt feathers around the middle part and just do stippling in the middle section.  I feel a lot better today about my feathers than I did yesterday.

 You can see it better from the back.

 I'll finish it tonight or tomorrow.

I really enjoy seeing everyone's quilting and get some very good ideas from them.

Day 3 of FMQ

I'm kind of embarrassed to post this picture, but I'm done practicing for today, so I have to!  I drew some lines on the muslin to make 4" squares divided in half diagonally because I am quilting a quilt with blocks that size.  I'm trying to decided if I want to do some more quilting on it besides stitching in the ditch.

I had some trouble with thread, so I had to change it a couple times.  You probably can't see the lines, but I tried some designs in each half of the squares as well as practiced some feathers filling up each half and the whole square.  

I am getting somewhat more comfortable with feathers, but I feel a 4" square is too small for them, so I will probably just leave it as is right now.  It is very helpful to see what other people are doing.  Some of you don't seem like you need much practice!

Happy Easter.  Ruth

DAY 2 FMQ

I did 3 feathers on triangular shaped sandwiches made from pieces of batting left over from table runners.  The first one isn't too bad, but on the left side some of the feathers are too fat where they connect with the spine.

 Sample #2 seems a little better.

 Sample #3 is a little better still.  I tried to do it with the feed dogs up like someone was saying in their post.  I do think it is a little easier to do it that way.  I had never heard of that before, but I think I'll continue to try it with them up and down to see which one I really like best.

I am amazed at how fast improvement is coming.  I know there are lots more ways to make them and I'll work on other shapes as well.  Ruth

READY TO PRACTICE!

This challenge is a great idea!!  I have enjoyed JoAnn's tutorials and have gotten some great tips from them.  I had already started quilting my basket quilt shown below.  I sandwiched it in two pieces so I wouldn't have so much quilt to wrestle with and I have all the blocks quilted in half of the quilt.  I want to put feathers in the border and I've never done them before.

Here is my practice piece from yesterday.  Kind of wonky.  Some of them look okay, but others are too long or something.  But, it's my first one, so I'm okay with it!

Ruth