Tag Archives: free motion quilting

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This successful little quilt was a plan B and FOMO all wrapped into one.

It’s Project QUILTING season again! I’ve participated the last five years. (Though some years I don’t complete all six challenges.) In the last many months I have been focusing on finishing up works in progress. I even updated the full UFO/WIP list. (Updated list coming later this month.) So... I decided what I would do for Project QUILTING this year would be to finish a project that was in progress for each of the challenges. I figured with the lengthy list of projects I would be able to fins a project to suit any challenge. I even looked over that UFO list and narrowed down to five contenders. But it's been a busy week and it's Saturday evening and I hadn't sewn a stitch.

One of the drawbacks to finishing an in progress project is that most of my WIPs are larger. Many are finished quilt tops, but I'm interested in doing detailed quilting that could take a while for some of them. But more importantly since those wouldn't be new projects started and finished in the challenge period my finish wouldn't count toward the collective total; I wouldn't really be part of the community this season. (Relatedly, I wouldn't be eligible for prizes, but that bothers me less.)

In past years I have often chosen small projects. I got the big idea that maybe I could do my unofficial project and a small official project. So now I'm trying to make TWO quilts in one week. (Are you laughing?) Then the next natural thought was that I should do the official one first.

I've finished a bunch of mini mini quilts recently. I really love the artist trading card size for a mini mini quilt (2 1/2" x 3 1/2"). And I have a couple fabulous rainbow fabrics that would be perfect for the All The Colors challenge. This week I decided on a whole cloth mini mini quilt. I quilted it with seven colors of thread, Aurifil 50wt in Dark Violet (#2582), Turquoise (#2810), Spring Green (#1231), Light Magenta (#2588), Bright Orange (#1133), Canary (#2120), and Light Delft Blue (#2720). I used a contour line motif, following the pattern in the fabric.

I encourage anyone who is interested to dive into the Project QUILTING challenges. If you want to participate and don't have enough time, just make a smaller project. Not enough time for that? Think even smaller. I quilted mine in the hour before dinner this evening. And after dinner I bound it while I played a game of Bloom with my sister on Zoom. Start time 5:40pm. Finish time 8:40pm.

I'm still planning for finishing a WIP that meets the theme of this week's challenge. It probably won't be by the deadline, but since it's unofficial, that's just fine. Maybe I'll use the off week between challenges to finish it. And as for the rest of the Project QUILTING season... I am now planning for a series of ATC mini mini quilts (perhaps all whole cloth) as well as finishing a WIP that ties to each challenge theme.

I'm linking up with Kim for Project QUILTING 13.1: All the Colors. Be sure to hop over and see the over 136 finished projects that folks created in just one week! Such an inspirational list. A big, giant thank you to Kim and Trish for creating this amazing community of makers. Also, a big thanks to my daughter. She selected all my thread colors and assisted with swapping thread as I quilted. She also filmed my video for the reel I shared on Instagram of my quilting.

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A few weeks ago I shared my new daily project, WIPs Be Gone with Leanne of Devoted Quilter. Here's a wrap up of all the works in progress I worked on during the first 25 days (of the last 100 days of 2021).

My commitment to myself is to spend at least 15 minutes (though often it's longer) making progress on a WIP. My goal is to finish 4 larger quilts before the end of the year as many of my finishes in the last year and a half have been mini quilts. You'll see that I'm still also working on mini quilt projects. In the next 25 days I'm gonna work to knock a couple larger projects into the finish column.

There's a bit of a theme in my projects so far: GREEN!

I spent the first week putting my Tac Tac Toe blocks into a finished quilt top. My WIPs Be Gone kickoff post lists all the Kona colors in this quilt and I absolutely love the palette. I'll be quilting it myself, but haven't yet basted it. This is atop my WIP priority list for the next few weeks.

I added hand stitching on my series of Personal Symbols mini art quilts from a summer class with Deborah Boschert. (hand stitching during Zoom meetings is great!) The next step on these is to add some free motion quilting before they are trimmed and mounted.

I finished the Positivity mini quilt that I shared recently. This was the project I spent the most time working on. I love the Kona Peapod background and always enjoy creating Scrappy Slabs.

I trimmed up my Waterfall quilt. It just needs binding, so I'll be finishing this in the next couple weeks, too.

And lastly, I worked on sewing together all my samples from the Improv Cutting Tips demo that I gave at the beginning of October. This blocks turned into a series of five mini quilts.

And I'm not just working on WIPs. I'm preparing for my first Improv Log Cabin guild class this weekend. And I'm also participating in Nicholas Ball's Improv Triangle Sew Along (in blue).

Oh and one more green thing I made recently. I'm taking a paper mixed media collage course and one thing we did this month was watercolor flowers and leaves with ink details. This is one of my favorites.

Thanks for visiting. I'd love to hear about what WIPs you're working on.

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I've been teaching All About Angles workshops since 2019. This project is actually the first quilt top that I pieced for myself in this style, way back before that time. I had selected the color palette, because these sunset colors called out to me and the pile of fabric hung out together on my shelf for quite some time before I cut into it to create this small quilt top.

Like many quilters, I've been wanting to finish up some of my WIPs. I participated in a 100 Day Project January 30 - May 10, free motion quilting for at least fifteen minutes a day. I prioritized finishing up quilt tops, including this one. I spent 33 days quilting this 24" x 19" quilt, meaning I spent well over 8 hours quilting it. I really enjoyed the process since I worked a bit at a time and wasn't hurrying to meet a deadline. This is important for me, because I am generally a procrastinator who is super motivated by a deadline, which can really limit the possibilities for the late stages of making a quilt. Can anyone relate?

I started by extending the diagonal lines from the piecing as well as reflecting them, continuing until I had divided the quilt into many areas of a variety of sizes. This step could have been done with a walking foot though I chose to free motion these lines. I marked my lines with a chalk pencil or disappearing marker.

Then I really had fun, choosing a different motif for each section, I started by echo quilting within the section before filling it in with the chosen motif. These motifs came from my usual FMQ toolbox as well as inspiration from Step-by-Step Texture Quilting by Christina Cameli (my newest quilt book) and The Ultimate Guide to Machine Quilting by Angela Walters and Christina Watson (affiliate links). Everything is quilted in 50wt Aurifil: Magenta (#2535), Red Orange (#2245), Bright Orange (#1133), and Medium Purple (#2545).

Pin for reference. Some of my motifs were very small patterns.

Sunset All About Angles was finished with a faced binding, which was a choice to further emphasize the quilting as the star.

My All About Angles class is available to guilds on Zoom. I teach a set of rules to create improv units that use the same angle, with no math or special tools. There are so many ways to utilize these units in a final composition. Please send your guild program chair to my teaching page for all the info. Thanks!

 

I've linked up to May's Favorite Finish linkup with Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs.