Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Seashells and branches

12July24sample1 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 off12July24sample2 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,

8 comments:

  1. Fantastic!! I love both of the samples that you did!

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  2. Wow! I like both your pieces, but the bare branches is my fave. Great work!

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  3. They are both awsome.
    Cheers Pauline

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  4. What gorgeous texture! I love how you combined the bare branches with the tiles. Very cool!

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  5. One of the great things about branches is they are thick and thin along the branch. Therefore, you can always say you purposefully strayed while traveling your stitch.

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  6. Your Tiles and Bare Branches look great! Nice idea to put them together!!! ~Jeanne

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  7. Your July challenge samples look fantastic. I love the branches filler. Bravo...well done.

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  8. They both look great! I found it a little difficult to get the lines straight in the tiles but it was fun!

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