Building Blocks Quilt Along: Block 2.1

Block 2.1 - Straight Lines

It's slow going for me on the quilt along. I keep meaning to get caught up, but it just hasn't happened. In my defense, I've had some other pressing projects lately. And I decided to order (and wait for the arrival of) a white fabric marking pencil before I continued with more blocks after this one. I've even marked block 2.2 and can confirm that the pencil is much better than blue pen on blue fabric. :-)

It's nice that I'm only four blocks in on this project and I can see improvement on my stitching in the ditch and travel stitching. The beauty of working consistently on free motion quilting is that you get better AND you remember what strategies work best for you. I also feel like I'm getting the hang of a better pace for longer stitches. (Still working on the consistent stitch length for a whole block.) This block also helped me work on corners... stopping my hands and foot at the same time to get a point -- I sometimes have trouble getting that corner stitch where it needs to be. Here's my quilted block:

front
front
back
back

I am finishing up another big project today, so I hope to get back to the quilt along. I have the next block marked and ready to quilt.

I’m linking up with Leah Day's April 4 FMQ Link Up.

6 thoughts on “Building Blocks Quilt Along: Block 2.1

  1. Marji

    Sarah,
    What kind of sewing machine are you using? I watched Leah's video. How does hers sew sideways and backwards?
    Marji

    Reply
    1. sarah

      Post author

      I'm using a Viking 6690. It's an old machine (30 years?). It's a standard sewing machine with about 7" to the right of the needle. Some machines do better or worse in some directions. In some cases it depends on your speed or how many stitches you try to take in that direction.

      Reply
  2. Amber

    Holy cow. That's a lot of stitching! Those rectangles must be something on the order of 1 cm tall, right? WOW!

    Reply
    1. sarah

      Post author

      The little rectangles are half an inch wide, so yeah. This took the most amount of time of any of the blocks so far. (For reference the fabric is 10"x10" and the quilted part is 8"x8". I wish I know how long it took me to quilt, but with the little ones running around all I can tell you is that I didn't get it done in one sitting. :-)

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.