May results for the SewCalGal FMQ Challenge 2012

Leah Day is the May guest FMQ featured this month at SewCalGal.blogspot.com - come on over to see how everyone's work is progressing!

Personally, straight line quilting was very challenging for me - how did you do?  I like the 'train track' look, though!

When I'm recooperating from minor surgery at the end of May, it will be nice to play checkers with my family members on the scrappy quilt I created this week - my ten-year-old DS and I chose brown and ivory buttons to play with from great-grandma's button stash:

And here's the almost finished product (binding tomorrow!)

I added the hearts/leaves from January in the scrappy 3.5" border and the feathers from February in the outside border for another chance to improve.

Hope you're finding the time to participate in SewCalGal's FMQ Challenge 2012 - the prizes being given away look really wonderful!  

Happy Sewing to all,

@

Winner!

And the winner of the Quilt Journal is #4, Mary Ann (as chosen by RNG).  Mary Ann, get a hold of me and I'll get your address.

Congratulations!
-Wendy

April Challenge

I, too, have had a try with Don Linn's technique demonstrated in the SewCalGal Freemotion Quilting Challenge.
I haven't tried many techniques yet - last time I wanted a specific shape on my quilt I drew around the outside of a piece of cardboard; ok for the simple rounded shape at the time but I can see that it would be totally inadequate for 'fancier' quilting designs.
I am part way through quilting a quilt at the moment so I am using the technique for parts of this.

Here is the design I sketched and traced onto my tulle.

Here are the resulting practise feathers.

I found this method quite easy and straight forward to do. I wonder if I need a finer tulle for more detailed designs, and I'll be interested to try the dark tulle with a silver marker pen on my 'real' quilt. I can see me using it again, as well as exploring other ideas :-)I wrote a bit more on my blog.
Happy free motioning every-one!
Raewyn

April FMQ Challenge

This month Mr Quilt, Don Linn, was the April expert on SewCalGal's 2012 Freemotion Quilting Challenge.  He demonstrated an interesting method for transferring your quilting design. After being somewhat stumped by my lack of an embroidery hoop, and scratching my head around what I would do as an alternative, Sue made a very timely post - thank you Sue!  I found a design I liked in my Karen McTavish Custom Curves book, enlarged, and mirrored it and using one of my embroidery machine hoops - Sue's excellent idea, I transferred it to netting, then to my runner, and got it quilted today.

traced onto the netting, ready to transfer

transferred, ready to quilt

quilted

While I don't often transfer a design to my quilt tops, I do like how this one came out, and will be using this method again - at least 3 more times on this runner, for sure!

April FMQ Challenge with SewCalGal and Don Linn

Alright I gave this a try.   I used a pattern from Custome Curves by Karen McTavish.  It was a bit beyond my skill level, but hey we have to push ourselves from time to time huh?  I used the embroidery hoop from my machine, it's nice and big.    I could only find a teal permanent marker so that's what I had to use, it came up a little light, but I could see it well enough.   Need to get a black one.

Then I traced on the material.  It is really light, but I can see when I'm quilting.  The next time I try this techinque I'll make the lines a bit darker.

And quilted .  Hmm a flash really makes a difference and there is alot of thread on there.  I need more practice following lines.  I did have fun with the fillers though.  I saw on Joan's blog one of her practice pieces had a McTavishing filler with pebbles mixed in, loved it so tried it myself.  Yep, I'll try this technique again and when I'm doing a dense background I'll echo the entire pattern first.  And I'll practice following the line, so hard sometimes :)

April FMQ with SewCalGal and Don Linn

Don Linn's book entitled "Free Motion Machine Quilting" arrived on April 5th and after enjoying his free, online tutorial on SewCalGal's blog and reading his book, then visiting about fifteen quilting blogger's websites to see what they experienced, I felt ready to prepare a baby quilt I am working on with an image of Pooh the Bear.  



Here's my pictoral:

I chose Aurifil 50w for both top and bobbin with a 70/10 needle, but switched to an 80/12 later after breaking the smaller needle (I believe it was due to the heavier flannel in the quilt).

I traced Pooh from a coloring book page, but left out a few of the finer details.  I did stop and start for each eyebrow, the eyes, the nose and his little mouth.  It was worth it!

I borrowed this ironing board idea from quilter's at a recent festival I attended.  This is simply an $8.50 USD wooden folding TV tray/table that I covered with an ironing board cover (cut to fit) and stapled to the underside.  It's portable, lightweight and great to work with!  

Thanks to several other SewCalGal FMQers who advised setting the Sharpie-marked bridal weight tulle with a nylon setting!  This helped alot since this is going to be a present!

I tried light-colored chalk first, but couldn't see it, so I decided to use the blue wash-away marker.  I was tempted to use the Frixion pen, but chickened out at the last moment.

***Isn't Pooh such a happy little guy?  His face brightens my day :-)***

Open-toe quilting foot on my Brother Innovis 4000D (you can get Disney machine embroidery designs for this machine from www.ibroidery.com).  Feed dogs down.

Here's the little guy (easier to see with the blue marker since I used ecru colored Aurifil.

Can you see Pooh's little nose and mouth after I washed his face? 

This was a very timely challenge - thank you Darlene of SewCalGal and Don Linn, free-motion machine quilter extraodinaire, a.k.a. Mr. Quilt!

Best wishes for a successful April FMQ to you!  

@

April 2012 Don Linn's stencil technique

This is my third attempt using a tulle stencil to transfer a design onto the quilt sandwich.  My first and second quilted designs are posted on my blog.  Instead of an embroidery hoop I made a permanent frame using stationary card board.  I copied Diane at Pine Point Designs who used a card board from a cereal box.

 I printed the butterfly from a colouring webpage, then modified the printed copy slightly to have more continuous lines.

Traced the butterfly onto the tulle using a black permanent sharpie marker.

Ironed the tulle on low heat to set the permanent marker.

Traced the butterfly onto the quilt sandwich using a Sewline cermanic green pencil.

The design transfers easily through the tulle.  I used my Bernina 930 Record sewing machine.

The first picture below is the backside.

This is the front side, the butterfly with the turquoise blue middle on a flower was my second attempt using Don Linn's tulle stencil technique.

I'm not a big fan of marking the quilt top. After a far amount of erasing this is my butterfly, I can still see bits of green pencil in the orange thread.  Getting the marks off the quilt is messy.

 Backside.

 Front side.

This is the tulle stencil.  As you can see, visibility is excellent.  I don't enjoy the chore of removing the markings afterwards.  My preferred method of fmq is to practice the design a gazzillion times on paper then sew it free hand on my fabric.

When I need a precise design,  I'll sew a traced the design onto parchment paper with no thread in the needle.  Then I pin the parchment paper to the quilt and follow the needle punched lines to stitch out the design.  This works quite well, except again I find removing the little bits of parchment paper caught in the stitches a pain you know where.  Perhaps a chalk pumice would work better to mark the quilt top, only I think the chalk would come off too easily. How do you mark your quilt designs?  Is there an easier way to get the marks off?

Happy stitching all!

Giveaway and April 2012 Free-Motion Quilting Challenge

I finished my April FMQ Challenge hosted by SewCalGal.  The goal was to try a new marking technique for our free-motion quilting.  We were supposed to lay a piece of tulle over the pattern and trace it.  Then lay the tulle over the desired quilting material and trace it again.  We were given a specific pattern to use.  Easy enough.  Here’s my piece. 

I then decided it needed a bit more quilting before I could call it finished.  I call it Spanish Sunrise.

I also sandwiched my mother’s quilt.  All ready to go now.  Tomorrow I have an appointment to do my taxes.  Nothing like waiting until the last minute, huh?

A couple months ago, Diane Gaudynski suggested we keep a quilter’s journal.  Everyone who enters The 2012 Free-Motion Quilting Challenge and also posts it here as well, will be entered this month to win a copy of A Quilter’s Notebook.  Prize to be chosen the first week of May by Random Number Generator.  Good luck everyone!

What did you FMQ today?

-Wendy

More Feathers

This quilt was suppose to be a Christmas present last year, oops, they got a bottle of wine instead.  This year will be a different story.  Finally got it done and quilted.  Now how's that I have a start on my Christmas sewing :)

My FMQ Challenge this month

I've done lots of FMQ this month, but not much in the way of background or fillers.  So, at the 11th hour I made this little sample of some fillers I commonly use along with some I have wanted to try. 

For the grids and straight lines, I used some thick acrylic templates for the first time.  By the time I finished, I think I may have had the hang of them.  I tried some tiny feathers in there (can you see them?), but they look so much like pebbles I decided they were worthless that small.  Another new one I tried was the triangles.  I like that one.  Kinda fun, kinda funky.

All in all, a fun exercise.  And since the point of this was practice, practice, practice, I think I fulfilled that with the FMQ throughout the month and the sampler at the end.

I'll finish this little guy off and send him to AAQI with my other two.

And what else have I been FMQing?  Why the Princess Star quilt, of course.  Here's a pic of outlining the central motif.  I'm working on outlining the star right now, but my Juki is in the shop for timing as is my Brother.  That leaves me with the dreaded Janome.  It's behaving so far. 

-Wendy

My March FMQ-ing

After a busy Feather month in February, this blog has quietened down so I thought I would share my March efforts for the SewCalGal Challenge here as well as on my usual blog.

My practise piece - as you can see I am re-cycling my quilt sandwich!

In the photo below you can see I experimented and taped my applique mat to my table - it's my poor man's version of the slider mat that some recommend. I think it did make the surface more slippery and therefore it was easier to quilt. I am tempted to buy a proper one now.

I thought my Sew-Ezi table would be fairly slippery but not as much as the
applique mat!

 I must admit the fillers Ann Fahl suggested took more concentration than I thought they would - I challenged myself to do one loop clockwise, the next loop anti-clockwise, a heart, 2 more loops (both directions) then the star. The changes in direction then the straight lining had me thinking!

I used 40 weight Aurifil thread. I really liked it through my machine.
I usually only use the heavier weight,  for my stitcheries.
I'm also trying to experiment with different threads for the challenges this year.



The completed block in my sampler quilt. The photo doesn't do it justice.

I haven't tried the spiral flowers yet - they look fun so will definately givethema try. Also, I went ahead and bought both Diane Gaudynski books after last month's tutorial - love them :-)
Happy quilting everyone,
Raewyn.

And the Winner is ...

Chosen by RNG (Random Number Generator), the winner of "Pathways from Quilt Top to Quilted" is ... Joan in Australia!  Any comments Joan?  How does it feel to win?  What do you think the book will add to your already fabulous quilting?

Congrats, Joan!