Seashells and branches

Yay for vacations – for many reasons, but in this case because I can spend more time with my sewing machine! I’ve been practicing this month’s Free Motion Quilting Challenge. They almost always look deceptively simple, but I suppose that’s because I’m watching someone who knows exactly what they’re doing. July’s tutorial is by Angela Walters who has us doing a “tiled” approach. Very interesting, and it looks fantastic when she does it. And a lot of other quilters who have taken the challenge (scroll down to the bottom of the page) have done an exceptional job! There are so many wonderfully creative people out there! And even if my attempts are far from perfect, I sure am learning a lot from this challenge series. I’ve learned that there are several different ways to FMQ, and the best way to become good at it is to just keep doing it.

I’ve always wanted to try these little seashells. Don’t know why I chose this  challenge to try them, but my curves have never been very curvy. And they were really choppy during this exercise. Three-quarters of the way through, I finally changed my needle, and that helped A LOT! But what really took the points off my curves was a little bit of vodka with some orange juice. Sometimes, ya godda do what ya godda do.

Leah Day has a “Bare Branches” tutorial on her website that appealed to me, so I tried that design with the tiles as well. She posted it to give everyone practice with “travelling”, and it sure does involve a lot of that! It’s a good technique to learn. Obviously, I haven’t perfected it yet (cue eye roll), but I’m not unhappy with the way my branches turned out, and I had fun doing it.

So, thank you once again Sew Cal Gal and Angela and Leah. I’ve learned so much since January.

Until next time,