Adventures in Free Motion Quilting

My 2nd entry into the Blogger's Quilt Festival this spring is a quilt I'm calling "Adventures in Free Motion Quilting."  The pattern is called 9-Patch Puzzle, by The Girl Who Quilts -- isn't it fabulous?!  Such a great pattern for using large scale prints.   For the 8 inch squares I used up most of my AMH Good Folks stash, and the borders are all various shades of Kona creams and browns.  I LOVE this quilt!

The back is made up of some "orphan" blocks, also from AMH Good Folks fabrics.  I don't remember when I made these, or why I didn't make enough for a full quilt, but I really like them on the back of this quilt.

Here you can see my quilting a little better -- for each of the front sections, I tried a different FMQ technique.  I had Angela Walter's book sitting open near my sewing machine, and when I finished one section, I'd look through the book for inspiration for what to do next.  There were many times when I was worried that I was ruining this quilt - but it was great practice, and it helped me figure out which designs I had fun doing, and which ones I'd never choose again!

Quilt Stats
Blogger's Quilt Festival "Home Machine Quilted" Category
Fabrics: AMH Good Folks, various shades of Kona Cotton solids

Pattern:  9-Patch Puzzle

Quilting:  free motion quilted on my Juki

Size: 64 X 72 inches

Binding: leftover scraps from the quilt top

Backing: orphan blocks plus large pieces of Kona solids

Thanks so much for visiting!

Enjoy the rest of the Blogger's Quilt Festival!

Scrappy Sticks

Quilt Stats

Fabrics: lots of scraps, in one inch wide strips
Pattern: a tutorial I made up! 

Background: various shades of solid gray

Quilting: straight lines in pairs on either side of the block seams, with free-motion quilted pebbles between the scrappy strings

Size: 44 X 55 inches

Binding: a yellow print from my stash

Backing: an Ikea white text print

Thanks so much for visiting!

A Skirt

I agonized over fabric for a long time for this skirt -- voile or cotton, color, large or small print -- then finally decided on one of my favorite Katie Jump Rope prints.

Anna Maria Horner's free pattern was easy to follow, the only tricky part being the elastic waist.  Rachel's advice about watching a show while threading elastic was perfect -- it made this job much less tedious!  

Beautiful, right?!
The only problem is, it looks terrible on me!  The quilting cotton is so poofy, that the shape makes me look huge(!!!), even if I wear it pretty low on my hips.  There is just so much fabric!  I'm thinking about re-doing it -- maybe taking out about 1/2 of the fabric on one side -- so it's less full.  Or making another one in voile, to see if it would lay a little flatter.   It's always an adventure, trying to sew clothing, isn't it?!

I'm linking up with the Flirting the Issue Sew Along at Stitched in Color!

In Progress

My sewing room is finally back together -- it was a long two weeks of tearing out walls, ceiling, and putting it back together.  Hopefully we've solved the leaking roof problem and my room will stay dry next winter.  I have a few painting touch ups to do, and then I can move all the fabric back in!

While my sewing machine was hanging out in my bedroom, I used my bed as a design wall/space, and finished putting together this quilt.  I used 8.5 inch squares of a variety of AMH voile fabrics.  I'm planning to back it in AMH flannels, but I'm nervous about quilting voile -- I've never done it before, and it seems so slippery!  I'd love any advice if you've quilted with voile fabrics!

Triangles!

 I'm so happy that my (first ever!) triangle quilt is complete!

I absolutely LOVE it . . . and so does everyone else in my family!  I think it has something to do with the super-soft swirly minky backing.  It was a bear to quilt -- it shifted so much that I'm shocked that the back looks as good as it does.  I had to keep taking out pins and smoothing it down while I was quilting.  Now that it's finished, though, I think it was all worth it!

Quilt Stats
Fabric: lots of different fabrics, in creams, reds, greens, and browns
Quilting: straight lines with Aurifil 28wt in cream
Measures: 50 x 65 inches
Tutorial: Triangle QAL at The Sassy Quilter (6 inch triangles)

















Linking up with Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts and