Or, how to de-learn a motif in three easy lessons! This month’s Freemotion Quilting Challenge over at SewCalGal's was given by Wendy Sheppard, who’s work is simply beautiful. Hats off to Darlene over at SewCalGal for bringing us such a fantastic bunch of teachers for this challenge!
Wendy Sheppard is very generous with her designs, and I’ve tried to “master” (ha!) some of them in the past. Still working on that. The brain says that her “jesters hat” motif for the August challenge looks simple enough, but the 
hands say otherwise. I started off on paper and did a whole page of doodles. They looked good. “I’m ready,” I thought. But I had something else to finish on my sewing machine first, so I doodled some more. Yup, looks good. Don’t know what all the fuss is about. Tried some of her Swirly Tails motif that was published in the Dec11/Jan12 issue of The Quilter and, hey, looked not bad. Then I went back to the jesters hat and “what the heck?” Did several more pages of “what the heck” and used up a couple of practice sandwiches before I was finally able to say “I can live with that”.
I blame Ginger that my samples were less than perfect. Better than blaming myself, right? Twice last night I was just getting into the groove when Queen Ginger, who was overseeing my work, reached out and snagged my sandwich. Her paw was nowhere near the needle, 
but it was enough to make me stop both times and start over again. I think she was going for the loose threads on the cloth that were tempting her beyond sanity. (My sewing machine is set up in the dining room and there’s no way to keep my curious little felines out of the way.)
It’s an interesting motif, and I can see myself using it in the future. And so can Rusty, as he models it for me this morning while I’m trying to take a picture of it. It’s a well-known fact that adding a cat model to anything makes a picture far more beautiful!
Go here and scroll down to the bottom of the page to see everyone’s great samples for August’s challenge.
Until next time,
Your doodling and swirls look great. Our pets just love to supervise lol
ReplyDeleteRegards Pauline
Your stitches look great. You got this one.
ReplyDeleteYour jester hats design looks wonderful, so glad that Ginger was there to supervise. Bravo.. very well done.
ReplyDeleteHello There. I discovered your blog the usage of msn. This is a very well written article.
ReplyDeleteI will be sure to bookmark it and come back to
read extra of your useful info. Thanks for the post.
I'll certainly return.
Feel free to surf my weblog : how to make an app