It's a Wrap!

 The 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge from SewCalGal is complete.

Even though I have been free motion quilting for several years, I have learned so many things from participating in this project.

All the teachers have been so giving and inspirational with easy to follow instructions, which could be gone back to anytime you wanted. The tutorials were so full of information, not only about free motion quilting but everything from fabric, batting, thread as well as design and products that can help make the process easier (or even just how to go about getting it done).

As part of the project, we are asked to do a summary of our year's samples and projects.

This my recap of the year's projects.

So here goes!!

January with Frances Moore

This is a little mini that was in the UFO pile and perfect to practice Frances Moore's leaf design. It is a replica (in miniature) of A Trip Around the World I made back in the '90s for my mother-in-law.

back

Mini Trip Around the World - front

February with Diane Gaudynski

This tutorial was excellent and I finally understood how to make feathers that I was really happy with.  The background filler on my sample was also new to me. 

Plumed Rio Grande was great to practice feathers and another UFO out of the closet.

feather sample

Plumed Rio Grande

March with Ann Fahl

It never occurred to me to combine the Loopy loop and stippling,  Ann calls this Loop and Twist. It was so much fun, it was hard to stop.  I kept adding different designs to stippling and ended up quilting six placemats, each with a design of its own.  The picture below shows the back of 3 of those.

sample

Red Placemats

April with Don Lin

This was another new technique for me.  After doing the sample, I tried the technique onto a little amish quilt that had been around for a long time.

sample

Purple Amish

May with Leah Day

I have followed Leah's blog for a long time and used a lot of her designs.  This was a new one and fun and easy to do.  In keeping with my plan of finishing a UFO using the technique of the month, I picked a lap size Trip Around the World to practice the double stipple. 

sample

Best Friends

June with Cindy Needham

I love Cindy's "Divide and Conquer".  Looking through my UFOs for something to try out this technique I found this  top that I had made many years ago to learn applique.   I decided I could adapt Cindy's technique with a little change . The inspiration for the squares (rather than random shapes) came from Melanie Testa's book “Inspired to Quilt”.

sample

Out on a Limb

July with Angela Walters

Angela taught us how break down large areas with tiles.  My first attempt was the straight square tile and I had a hard time keeping the everything looking square.  I then tried the irregular and jagged variation which I found suited me a lot better.  I have a twin size quilt about 3/4s done with this design.  That will have to go on the list for next year.

August with Wendy Sheppard

Wendy's challenge was Jester's Hats which looked real simple at first glance but took some practise to “try to” master.  Another small UFO - Little Irish - a miniature Irish Chain got covered with Jester's Hats.  

sample

Little Irish

September with Paula Reid

This is my sample but since I did not have any Golden Threads paper I used Glad Press 'n Seal.  It worked well and stuck to the paper for tracing and to the fabric for stitching.  

sample

October with Teri Lucas

This was the first time I ever quilted on silk and I love the looks of it.  On this sample I tried as many different kinds of threads that I thought would work for this project. 

sample

November with Sarah Vedeler

Sarah challenged us with doing spirals in a grid format. I especially like the looks of the small spirals in the grid (mine are 1”). I thought I would give myself an extra challenge and quilt on satiny fabric.

Spiral Cushion

December with Patsy Thompson 

Patsy challenged us with doing borders. My favourites were the feather borders, the tutorial on how to do take offs and kissing corners to get mirror images was excellent.  My sample  is a reversible table topper, measuring 22” x 22”.

Border Sampler - Side 1

Border Sampler - Side 2

Thank you SewCalGal for all your hard work and thanks to all the great teachers who made this possible.  I learned a lot and enjoyed every minute of this challenge.

Go have a look at all the Grand Prize Entries at Insights From SewCalGal here.

Terry