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Free Motion Mavericks (Week 212)

As some of you may know, Muv of Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing has been hosting Free Motion Mavericks for a while (two hundred and eleven times in fact!). A few months ago she asked me to co-host the weekly link-up. I was thrilled and said YES! So Muv and I will be taking turns hosting this trans-Atlantic event. We're still working out the details, but I'm sure we'll figure it out

Mini Art Quilts
✔Two minis done, and two more to go!

Blooming Yellow

My original intention was to wrap the mini over the canvas. I had a difficult time because the seams in the background made the corners bulky. When I trimmed on of  the seams to reduce the bulk in the corners, I ended up ripping it. It was a pretty frustrating mess!

Blooming Yellow Mini Art Quilt

I ended up finishing the art quilt like a pillow case. I then added a background using one of the fabrics on the mini ...

I’ve just finished this quilt, called Dresden Neighborhood, but I think it should probably be called “Cursed”!

When you start free motion quilting, you are told to just do an all over meander, keep everything curvy and don’t overlap your lines. It sounds easy to someone who has been quilting for a while. But to a true beginner, that can be very intimidating.

In today’s tutorial I show you how to use stencils as a guide to learn and master the overall swirl. Once you have got the muscle memory down and have practiced moving throughout the quilt creating an even quilting texture, you can ditch the stencil and start getting creative.

Supplies we used ...

Welcome to my first post of 2019!

One Monthly Goal (OMG) for January

I'm not sure what happened at the last Out of the Box Fibre Artists Group meeting in November...I know I wasn't drunk because I was driving (lol)...but somehow I got over-excited and ambitious and put my name down for another two mini art quilts. That's above the other two that I signed up for in September - that makes four! They may be mini, but that doesn't mean that they're easy or quick to make.

So that's what I need ...

This is the beginning of week two of a month of posts by Island Batik Ambassadors featuring all of the newest collections of fabric. Today I'm sharing what I made with my bundle of Fortune Teller fabric. Way back in July I was so excited to open this beautiful rainbow of fabric.

My quilt features all 20 fabrics from the collection and is 80" x 96"! I think that makes it one of the three largest quilts I've made. I optimized for using all I had of the twelve fabrics that make up the center of the quilt ...

In a few hours, 2019 will be upon us....and I sure hope it's a good one :-) Thank you so much Yvonne of Quilting Jet Girl for hosting this annual party!

#2019 Planning Party

I've been thinking a lot about what I want for 2019 and it's a lot like my planning for 2018. My goal is to keep learning and creating, and to minimize the stress. Easier said than done, but last year was better than 2017 and with any luck, other than January, I will be able to keep this in mind.


After posting my ...

I have a gorgeous new quilting design for you today called Undulation. It’s very simple, intentionally irregular echoes, but it’s quickly become my favorite design. See how to quilt it in this new quilting tutorial:

This is Design #501 on the Free Motion Quilting Project! Click Here to find all the other designs I’ve shared since 2009.

Click Here to find the book 365 Free Motion Quilting Designs. This is a beautiful picture book filled with hundreds of quilting designs of every shape and texture you can imagine. This is the perfect book to keep next to ...

It’s that time of year again! The holidays are over, and it’s time for Kim Lapacek of Persimon Dreams to begin the first week of the Project Quilting Season 10 challenge.

When I saw the first challenge phrase, “Hope Springs Eternal“, I instantly thought of a photo my son & daughter-in-law sent us of our sweet little granddaughter looking up in awe as she “helped” decorate their Christmas tree.

Isn’t she a sweetie? She’s just between 1-1/2 & 2…So this is the first time she’s really enjoying the tree. And that look on her face ...

All I needed to do with the Jinny Beyer BOM from 2015 was take the four completed blocks, turn them into placemats and quilt them. I pulled the fabrics I was not going to use out of the project box … Continue reading →

This week I’m practicing echo quilting as I quilt River Path through another square on this small quilt. See how I played around with changing my grip on the longarm once again to see if that made a difference:

Click here to find more Frame Quilting Friday videos. I’ve been sharing new videos on my Grace Qnique Longarm for several months now and I love to hear your suggestions for new videos and tutorials. Make sure to share your ideas in the comments below.

Click here to learn more about the Grace Qnique and Continuum quilting frame I ...

I commented to a friend that BUILD is such a great word for 2019, at least for me. This morning while working on what my day will look like I hit this moment of overwhelm that nearly stopped me in my tracks. Said friend reminded me to take a deep breath, and that I can… Continue reading Build

Whimsical Winter Table Runner 

The theme for the Island Batik Ambassador December challenge is Whimsical and Wonky.  The  Island Batik supplied Alpine Ice 10-inch stack of pre-cuts is perfect for my Whimsical Winter table runner.

Two traditional quilt blocks, the Churn Dash and Snowball, are constructed with wonky and random patches. The Churn Dash has Alpine Ice trees. The Snowball blocks feature Island Batik Blender, Ravine.

Stars fill the center of the Churn Dash and  wonky snowflakes fill the Snowball blocks. The Westalee Design mini Crosshair Square, top left image, helps mark evenly spaced reference lines quickly and accurately.

The ...

These two quilts are ready to be sent off for snuggling! The best news is that the boys have "graduated" from the NICU and are at home!

… is the name of this little quilted piece. Obviously, that came from what’s printed on one of the panels, but it also refers to the age of all of the pictured objects. The panels and dotted setting fabrics are all linen, from l’Atelier d’Isabelle, and I found them at the Houston show last month. […]

As an Island Batik Ambassador, I am provided with samples of various lines of Island Batik fabrics to use and share with you!

While I still might not be done with Clue #3 for Good Fortune (and Clue #4 comes out tomorrow!), I did finish up my Island Batik Ambassador project for December! In my last post, I shared about how I used the Crosscut technique from A Quilter's Table to make the top of this table runner!

This week I’m practicing travel stitching on my longarm with the perfect design: pebbling! See how I’m changing up my grip to determine if that helps me gain more control over the design and my travel stitching:

I’m quilting on my Grace Qnique Longarm on the Continuum quilting frame. I love this machine because it’s small and has just the right number of features I need to quilt my own quilts.

I love the Continuum frame because it can grow with me and if I ever decide to get a bigger longarm machine this frame can ...