Bust Yo! Scraps QAL...le fin.

Well hello there.

I hope we all had a lovely mothers day yesterday?. I was woken up with cards and gifts and had a wonderful roast for dinner cooked beautifully by my husband. The rest of the day was spent putting binding on this quilt and continuing with other projects I have going which I'm sure you'll read about soon.



and the back:



It was so theraputic, using up all those scraps, and I was surprised at how well they all seem to go togther, I think I had enough of each colour to be able to have a bit of consistancy and look like I planned it that way.

This is a triple whammy for me. Not only is this going in to the Just a Bit frayed QAL flickr pool but its also going into the stitched inn color scrap attack pool and as its been free motion quilted using the new to me loop de loop it also qualifys to go into my March FMQ challange. It was quite refereshing doing something other then straight line or stippled quilting and I will definitely be taking Anne Fahls advice and trying new designs in future.

I'm going to the sewing for pleasure show in Birmingham this Thursday so I'm sure i'll be replacing those scraps pretty soon!

2012 Free motion challange: March

This month Ann Fahl has focused on improving our skills using some simple designs. She has focused a lot on prep work too. I invested in a white board and I can't tell you enough how invaluable this tool is, as it allows you to develop a flowing motion as well as save paper. Here are my white board and fabric efforts:

Loop de loop:




Hearts:



Flowers:



Stars:



Tips I have learnt:

1- Use monofilamint for ditch quilting
2- If your thread spool is cross wound, the thread should lie horizontally on your machine with spool cap on and should not spin. If your thread is parallel wound then the thread spool should lie vertically and should spin. (Can you beleive I never even noticed how thread was wound before?!)
3- Steam your layers when basting
4- Stop stippling and try something new and put your own spin on it.
5- Keep a book of FMQ designs, here is mine:



Im still keeping up with my February challange, and I've found a new techinque for creating the plumes:



It's still not how I would like it to be on fabric, but drawing with a pen and using the needle as a pen are two different things!. I am pleased with how the shape of the individual plooms has improved though:



I'm off to loop de loop my scrap quilt, back soon!

xx

when it rains, it pours.:-(

Last week was not good. My husband was away with work for a few days, at the same time my daughter got sick and that evening I had to ring for an ambulance as just before bed time, my 3 year old son swallowed a coin,:-( emergency services said it was a long wait for the ambulance, could I drive?, but my husbands away and my daughters sick so how could I? the answer was my inlaws- get them to drive over from the other side of town, but in my mother in laws rush, she hit her neighburs car coming out of the drive double:-(

Four hours later (and aching arms from little man falling asleep on me in A&E) we see the xray of his tummy with the coin in, thankfully, it wasnt lodged anywhere it shouldnt be and the doctor said he should pass it in a few days. I never thought the term spending a penny would be so literal. Then a couple of members dropped out of the bee im in to top it off! So there it is, my bad run of luck must be over now surely!

Its now been 6 days and still no sign of the penny unless I missed it somehow on er toilet duty. So today I'm waiting in for a doctors phone appointment for some advice.

On the plus side, I've managed to whip up 3 more simple skirts for my daughter as she has grown out of almost everything and these should be perfect for summer.

It also means my little man will get his plane quilt in plenty of time for his birthday.

every cloud and all that...-)

February Bee blocks and another mini to pimp my wall

My machine is back and running beautifully thanks to those who asked, the tech re set the tension and gave her a good clean, it may be my imagination but I'm sure she even sounds different!

Oooo I really like this mini quilt I made for my wall, the solids were so lovely to use, I think Ill have to make a whole quilt from them, and my stripey binding fascination is getting worse, I just love how it frames the design. Im entering this in the modern mini challange over at Ellison Lane Quilts. I was supposed to be showing another one but I havnt had time to complete it.





Here are my February bee blocks. The brief was that it had to go with some Dr Seuss fabrics so I'm hoping Lee Ann likes them, I think they should compliment the fabrics well.

I'm still busy hand quilting my monster double dresden quilt,and Im only half way through the horizontal lines, it'll take me a while to quilt up the vertical lines but I do enjoy being able to work whilst watching the t.v.

My Bust Yo Scraps blocks are coming along nicely, I've almost finished piecing them, Im calling it "Citrus Burst" as theres a lot of lemon, lime and zesty orange fabrics running through it. I think I may also back this one with an upcycled bed sheet as I want to see how these sheets machine quilt.

TTFN

Lost without my machine?

My sewing machine is at my dealers. I was having a problem with it where the tension on the back of my work was all wrong, the first few stitches were loose and then it was correcting itself. I was under the impression that the tension should be perfect on both sides so the top thread shouldnt be visible on the bottom at all, but according to the tech man, it depends on your fabric, I was using Kona 100% cotton, so was really quite surprised the fabric was getting blaimed for tension issues.

Ofcourse this didnt happen at all when I tried to demonstrate it to him at the shop, but as Iv had it for a year he agreed to take it apart and clean it up for me. He said problems on the back of your work are normally related to thread or lint getting caught up in the pre tension disc.

Its all ready for pick up tomorrow and whilst no problems were found, he has reset the tension (whatever that means) and cleaned her up so Im hoping she will sew nicely tomorrow.



It's actually been quite nice not having my machine around. I've managed to hand quilt almost half of my dresden quilt, and spend much more time with my son, which I'v begun to realise wont last much longer, as I have just 4 months till the summer holidays, after which, he will be starting school and I will have NO children at home with me anymore!:-( Its made me re-evaluate my priorities, so the quilting will have to take a back seat, these are precious moments that wont last forever so I really need to make the most of them while I still have him all to myself.



The picture at the top is a mini quilt I made in a bid to pimp my wall, it's one of a few I'm working on, I'm hoping it'll add some character to my sewing room.

Gone Quilting...

My £15 bedsheet is attached to the back of this quilt. I've hand quilted my first row, and its pretty easy to quilt through. so far so good.

I've also been continuing to practice my FMQ:



and i've made a mini quilt..but more on that next week.

Happy Valentines day!, did you get anything nice? This is what was waiting downstairs for me this morning:



and this will be our dinner tonight, will you be eating anything special?

February FMQ Challange Day 1

...and oh what a challange. Feathers. Tricky to draw let alone master on the machine, but I practiced (in a money saving way, on paper with no thread) This time I drew and drew and drew till I got the right shape.

Practice 1:



Practice 2:

I couldnt quite get the right shape so I had another go by cheating..



I say I cheated because I drew with my needle over Dianes beautiful tear drop shapes.(the picture above is my work from the back,) and you know what?, it helped get the right shape in my head.

Practice 3:



Better right? It's far from perfect, but I'm doodling on paper every chance I get, on the phone, in the bath, on the loo ...just kidding, but I have practiced quite a bit today.

Practice 4 - on fabric:

Heres my final practice of the day on some fabric. This is the back because the front was a little difficult to picture with the fabric I used:



It's not perfect by any stretch but its beginning to look a bit like it should, and these are really quite addictive!

I'm totally going to keep at this one and post some more results at the end of this month.

If your interested in getting some fabulous instructions click on the link below, it will take you right there. Oh and F.M.I I used mettler 50 Weight thread in the top and bobbin with a size 90/14 needle, sensormatic FM mode, feed dogs down. Top tension was adjusted to 6 pivot height -1