Nautical free motion quilting sampler

Yesterday I found a long lost project that has not been blogged yet!  Wow, It's been finished since August 2016!  I realized it never got blogged because I hard a hard time getting good photos of it.  So, I took it outside and got a few half decent shots.  I'm not a photographer for sure 😄. 

This was a very fun quilt along project that Lori Kennedy hosted on her blog in 2016.  I did another quilt along with her in 2014.  They always look so scary, but once you put that needle into the fabric and step on the pedal, it really does work!  She gave great instructions to divide the piece up with chalk lines and then we did several rows each week.  First we practiced doodling on paper and that really does get your brain in gear!  There are a lot of little wiggles and wrong directions, but when you get the whole thing finished you can never find them back.  Since it had a nautical theme, I found a beach print I had in my stash that I picked up on our trip to PEI.   I just hung it up in my sewing room to celebrate the summer season. (Click on the photos for a larger view.)

rows of nautical themed free motion practice

the back on my new folding wooden chair that needs to be painted yet

The light kept reflecting off that bright blue

a bit closer

I found a lovely striped multi coloured fabric for the binding.

Thanks Lori for the inspiration to keep pushing ourselves to try new things.  I have a whole stack of table runners to quilt.  That will give me good practice again!

Free motion practise with Lori Kennedy

Free motion quilting is one of those skills that needs practise, practise, practise which is boring :-)   There are always so many things that need to be done.  I keep procrastinating and trying to get motivated.  Excited to report that I've discovered the solution to that problem by coming across a blog by Lori Kennedy called The Inbox Jaunt.  Lori suggests using squares of solid coloured cotton and quilting practise motifs and then binding them and using them as vase quilts or mini wall hangings or just collecting them :-).   This has just motivated me to actually get around to trying these wonderful ideas.  (She also suggests making up a whole bunch of little sandwiches in various colours, but I haven't gotten quite that organized yet LOL.)

Every Tuesday she posts a tutorial on a new design or an adaptation of one of her earlier ones.  I decided to jump in and find a piece of green Kona cotton and to make a 12" square doodle piece of a Christmas tree and then I could possibly use it in my table top hanger which I want to rotate seasonally and on special holidays.  I really just slapped this triangle onto a 12 " square of cotton and started at it.  My original idea was to quilt straight lines up and down the tree and fill in with different designs.  However, I should have used a different angle ruler, so I drew two lines and started doodling!  The two lines helped get the angle I wanted.  I just got Angela Walter's new book and it showed the design that I used in the center to fill in a triangle - perfect!  I used variegated King Tut thread , but switched to green for the background.  I was trying to make snowballs LOL.  I should have drawn my grid lines a little closer together, but "finished is better than perfect", the Dear Jane quilters would say.  (Click on the photos for a larger view.)

The tree before binding.  I am still debating quilting something in the strip under the tree, but not sure what.  Can always add that later :-)

With binding and hanging on the table top stand. 

The backing - a Jason Yenter print

Lori also instructs you to doodle a lot on paper to get the hang of a design.  That definitely does help.  I started a notebook to practise and keep it by my computer so I can doodle various motifs that she suggests.  Onward ho to a poinsettia. I did doodle a lot of poinsettia's before getting the hang of them.  The colour in these pictures is way off....no idea where the orange comes from!  The piece is actually dark red more like the bottom photo!!

the center poinsettia

this orange peel motif was very fun

Finished little quilt bound and ready for the table

Thanks so much Lori for the motivation to get me going on this!!