My Sewing and Quilting Adventures

Its been a long time since I quilted my Totally Groovy quilt. This was my first large quilt and sometimes I feel if I work on this alone nothing else will be get done. So, this has been put away for a long time. This week I quilted some more of my continuous feathers. You can see that I gradually change the scale of my quilting. Quilting in 1/2inch scale seems to be so easy when compared to large scale 1.5inch scale. Groovy Quilt - continuous Feather FMQ Groovy Quilt Back - Feather FMQ Groovy Quilt - Feather FMQ closeup At least I made some progress with my groovy quilt. Now linking it with Leah Day's FMQ Friday.

I made little bit more progress with the Dress-up Days Lap Quilt: 4.5 rows done and 3.5 more to go: When finished this quilt top will measure approximately 54x 72. My goal is to finish this quilt top by end of the month. Now linking up to  W.I.P. Wednesday@ Freshly Pieced.

There are so many options for quilting on the borders. My favorites are continuous line swirls. To make it more modern I am using the boxy swirls design. If you want to skip all these you can just go with "Follow the line" FMQ :-), that's what I call it. Here is a quick video on it. I am using black thread because the outer of the puppy is black. Quilting on the line/around the motif For the negative space filler I am using circle FMQ designs. Circle FMQ might seem intimidating but it is actually a very forgiving design and has a great texture. Circle FMQ The inner border is a boxy FMQ with squares: I am keeping things simple in the outer border and using a loopy-loop FMQ and highlight some motifs by quilting around them. You can see below I quilted around the birdie and the puppy with the ball. I hope I have inspired you to quilt the borders of your quilt and filling the blocks. Next week I will be back with January-recap. Other FMQ Resources:

Working on another baby quilt. I quilted the block with wavy line to frame them, swirls on the smaller border and Angela Walter's flower FMQ in the outer borders. Now linking it up with Leah Day's FMQ Friday.

This week I worked on making three simple quilt tops. Two quilt tops have been completed and 1 still in progress. The first one is a baby quilt or can also be used as a wall hanging, "Spot's Favorite Colors": Spot's Favorite Color - Baby Quilt 36 x 36  The second one is a toddler quilt, I just added couple of borders to the Disney Cars Panel, this measures 40 x 55 inches. Lighting McQueen Quilt The third one is lap or small twin size quilt using Jelly roll and a Charm pack from Riley Blakes dress-up days. 2 rows done and 6 more to go: Dress-up Days Quilt Now linking up to  W.I.P. Wednesday@ Freshly Pieced.

Do you want to improve your free motion quilting? Then here is a list of essential tools and supplies which are helpful to practice free motion  quilting  (FMQ): Essential Tools: Free motion quilting foot Schmetz Topstitch needles  - 80/12 for 50wt thread or 90/14 for 40wt thread Quilting thread. For example Sulky 40wt Rayon, Superior Threads So Fine #50 Polyester, Auriful 50wt thread, Isacord Polyester Threads , Coats and Clarks 30wt cotton machine quilting thread. Supreme slider or any other teflon mat which they already use for quilting Machingers quilting gloves Quilt Sandwich for practice. I generally use either solid color layer cake, fat quarter or half yard of fabric. Paper/Pen for practicing quilting designs.L Little Genie Magic Bobbin Washers (optional) Water soluble marking pen or disappearing marking pen of your choice Fabric considerations: Some of the fabrics I found very helpful for practicing FMQ: Darker Solid fabric with contrasting lighter quilting

The theme for January quilt is - Just Borders. Its amazing to see what you can do with just adding borders to rectangles/triangles/hexagons/squares. I want to slowly build the piecing skill as part of the Boot Camp Sundays. So, this month we will just focus on adding borders/sashing to squares and rectangles. Here are some fabric choices for this month: Girl ABC Panel and Border fabric Spots Favorite Color Panel and border/binding fabrics Pre-cuts Pre-printed Panels : These are amazing way to make baby quilts. You can find a variety of children panels. Some of them you can use as center of the quilts. Others, you can cut them into blocks and use as center of the blocks. Pre-cuts : There are quite a variety of pre-cuts from Fat Quarters, Fat eighth, Layer cakes(10" squares), charm packs (5" squares), Moda candy (2.5" squares). Also triangles are available called Turnovers and ofcourse my favorite Rolie Polies/Jelly Rolls(2.5" x 42/44 inch strips)

Hello Everyone, I hope everyone is having a wonderful starting of the year 2013. I am so excited about this initiative to improve my quilting skills and make complete quilts this year. I went ahead and created a flickr group for us:  Boot Camp Sunday Flickr Group If you want to join 2013 Quilting Boot Camp. Please join this group and introduce yourself. This would be wonderful place to share your progress each week/month. This is my first time hosting an event like this and I might have lot of learning to do myself. So, I am looking forward to your suggestions and ideas to improve your quilting boot camp experience. If you would like to see some particular techniques/patterns in this boot camp, please leave a comment below. I have a plan laid out for the first quarter of the year. January - Just borders February - Strips & Coins March - Tube quilting April - Half Square Triangles and Snow balling I wanted to added more information about the fabric choices for Januar

This week I have been working on couple of projects and I have been experimenting with wavy lines. Here are 3 different FMQs which I tried this week: I really like the heart 8s which I quilted in the center square to go along with the fabric print. Pillow Front You can really see the quilting in the back of the pillow sham: Pillow Back Now linking up with FMQ Friday at Free Motion Quilting Project .

I had pieced this a while ago but never got to blog about it. This quilt top using one of the patterns from Elizabeth Hartman's craftsy class: Inspired Modern Quilts . The pod blocks where made using the new moda candy pre-cuts(2.5inch squares). These are fun little pre-cuts. The fabric used for the negative space is Robert Kaufman's Yarn Dyed Linen in flax. For the backing I am planning to make a big pod block using charm squares. Now linking up to W.I.P. Wednesday@ Freshly Pieced.