Free Motion Quilting Challenge

The arrival of January sort of felt like getting shot out of a cannon. I managed to carve out lots of “me” time during the holidays and now it’s back to real life. I haven’t done much sewing since the first part of the month because all things QA are starting to ramp up for our Spring Seminars. I finally got around to replacing the batteries in my camera and downloaded a bunch of pictures today. Several of the pictures reminded me of my quilt related New Year’s resolutions:

1. Stop scheduling things that conflict with my guild meetings.
2. Improve my free-motion quilting skills — more on that below.
3. Improve my piecing skills.
4. Complete my quilt-y UFOs by New Year’s Day. Alright, I confess…this was actually a late November resolution in preparation *for* the New Year (it was also a great way to rationalize and justifiy new fabric purchases in December.) Between the week of Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day I managed to finish all but one UFO. I had an applique project that was determined to show me who’s boss and it had to go back in the box for awhile.
5. Continue to whittle away at needlework UFOs. Yes, I keep them in a separate UFO category because there’s an embarassing quantity of them going back at least 15 years.

In early December, Kara H. saw my post about free-motion quilting and was kind enough to send me a link to Leah Day’s Free Motion Quilting Project. Leah is my hero! I’m pretty sure I spent an entire day on her website and that solidified my resolve to jump right into free-motion quilting. Just a few days later I stumbled on SewCalGal’s 2012 Free-Motion Quilting Challenge and signed-up immediately. That some of my favorite quilters/instructors are giving lessons each month was just butter on the biscuit.

Some of the pictures I downloaded this morning were of my first attempt at January’s lesson with Frances Moore:

The motif is supposed to be leaves, but mine look more like hearts on the first pass.

I practiced with and without the stitch regulator and with different weights of thread. Oddly enough, the best stitches were with some very old, very dusty Coats & Clark 40 wt.  The WOODEN spool says the price was 29 cents.

I put together 6 more practice sandwiches but haven’t done any additional stitching yet. I’ve managed to pull one of my best friends into the quilting world and she’s coming tomorrow for a sewing weekend, so I’ll get some more practice done.

It’s not too late to join the 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge!  There are drawings for monthly prizes and a Grand Prize package at the end.  Visit SewCalGal’s website for all the details. Take the pledge here. The FAQs are here. Then join the Facebook group where you’ll find a very active, motivated and super supportive group of quilters.

This picture of Tammy was also on my camera.  She got the stuffed frog for Christmas..it “ribbits” several times when you squeeze it.  She loves the thing and walks around the house with it in her mouth all day.  It’s not stuffed tightly so the squeezebox moves around inside.  When she can’t set it off squeezing it in her mouth, she lays down and pokes it with her snout until it goes “ribbit” again. Then she picks it up and runs around the house doing some sort of whacky victory dance with the thing going “ribbit ribbit ribbit” all the while.  That she appears to be sticking her tongue out at me is completely indicative of her personality…if she could roll her neck in circles and tell me “Talk. To. The. Paw.” she would.