Free Motion Practice Projects

Free motion takes practice, practice, practice, as you try to find a workable rhythm among the foot pedal, the needle, the movement of your hands and the fabric. Why not practice on small projects?  Here's a changing pad sectioned off for my dabbling in varied designs. (Video quality is poor, but you get the idea.) 

I've also done this with sandwiched rounds, slit and used for scratch-free stacking of my stainless steel pots. I've read of others who practice on sandwich circles that they cut to fit between their china plates. No more rattling of the dishes in the china cabinet.

Points Turned Revisited or Ten Minute Block Variation Untimed

Back in 2014 I posted about a block method I saw online, but I had no instructions of how to do it. Here I will try to give a visual of how I think it went together. Though, now I'm doing this from the photos, and not a tutorial.

Step 1: cut out 4.5 inch squares. Fold the part you want in the middle in half. Crosscut the fabric you want as background, for four triangles. I think the center white fabric was cut at 2.5".

Step 2: Sandwich folded square in the triangles, right sides facing, as shown.

Step 3: Sew with scant 1/4 inch seam along either side.

Step 4: Open out and press the triangle "wings" out from the folded center fabric.

Step 5: Good luck with this step. Pin the edges of the triangles together, sandwiching and getting that center folded piece centered such that it will be caught in the stitching, as well. 

Step 6: Stitch the pinned edges together, pulling pins and adjusting fabric as you go.

Step 7: When seam is finished and the pins all pulled, you should have a puffy center. Flatten the background and center to make a square. The edges of the center will be about a quarter inch beyond the seams. Press and flat, then toward center. This is when you could check my measurement for the center white piece, because you'll need a piece to lay in the square up against the seam.

Step 8: Lay the smaller square piece in center and then fold the center square's flaps over its edges, forming a curve. Stitch the flaps down, trapping the smaller square under the flaps.

Casual Breakfast to Deluxe Dinner - All Within Bounds

My kitchen peninsula is quite narrow; most standard store-bought place mats are usually too deep for the small expanse. The sewing project was added to the ever-expanding "To Do" list. 

The original plan was to use these as great practice for some free motion quilting. However, I pretty much stayed with a simple corner curve for them once it came time to quilt. The right binding for these diverse fabrics posed a problem until I remembered what one quilter told me: "brown goes with just about everything." So, the binding is a brown/beige cut from yardage found at Hobby Lobby. I was in too big a rush in getting the photos and neglected putting out utensils/napkins, etc. But you get the general idea, I'm sure.

Lattice for a Little Lady

This lattice quilt was made with a charm pack from the Missouri Star Quilt Company using their  "Lattice Quilt" tutorial. Actually, the instructions are also in their BLOCK magazine...can't seem to lay my hands on it, but it was from the first year of the magazine. 

Jenny suggested laying the blocks out and testing the tones by snapping a b&w photo...which I did. That helped with placement. 

I used some extra scraps of fabric from my daughter's toddler days. At the time I was piecing this our granddaughter was not yet a twinkle in her father's eye, but I was able to put this together ahead of her birth and in time for the baby shower. (Yea!) 

Now she's six months old and sitting pretty!

Finished!

Figuring placement.

Labeled on front with machine stitched strip of red.

Another chance to practice free motion.

Backing fabric was too pretty to cut, so it found a home here.

Love a Piped Binding!

This small project was a 2013 foray into free motion quilting (FMQ) using a zigzag in free motion. It sat on my bookshelf for these many months and a couple of years (sigh) unbound. 

Recently I decided to bind it using a piped binding method explained in detail here. [<--- click there.] [[or....here:

http://www.52quilts.com/2012/05/tuesday-tutorial-susies-magic-binding.html ].

1. Shows the finished front. 2. Shows the best corner of the four using the piped binding method. 3. Shows the little triangle that I worked into the upper two back corners beneath the binding, so that the piece may be hung by slipping a project width dowel beneath the triangles.  

This is the back of the finally finished project.

Thankful for Henry Ford

Guys are wonderful, but they are hard to buy for, don't you think? When I saw this BBQ towel project in an old Quilt-It Today  magazine*, it seemed the perfect project for the fellas. 

Anyway, it was already December before I got started, and I had not ever done applique, so somehow I figured that using my embroidery machine might avoid that particular hurdle. Henry Ford to the rescue with his assembly line method of construction, and I was off to the races.

Assembly was a bit of blur, and I can say now,  should there ever be a "next time", I'll opt for researching applique over doing the embroidery, as I definitely remember having fits getting the lettering lined up and stitched with my little embroidery machine. (We're not friends, yet. I haven't even named it.)

Finding the exact Argyle printed fabric as was used in the magazine for the band was what made me decide to do multiples. The issue was the May/June 2013 of Quilt-It Today, and the shopping didn't take place until December of that year. Seemed providential.

So, next time you think maybe I'll make that little project, go ahead and get enough supplies to go all Ford-like, assembly-line fashion and roll out a production line that will put last year's models to shame!

*A web search suggests that Quilt-It Today magazine is no longer in print. It seems their back stash is being offered for sale in UK. Guess I have a bit of a collector's item in my short stack.

Quilt Show... Falling Off a Log

Teresa Belyea is Sandy's assistant in our local quilting group. She is a prolific quilter and usually does quilts in very bold and vibrant colors. Color-wise one would never know this was her work, but scope and precision-wise, it's her all over. And her creative playfulness in naming the quilt is also evident. Well, whatever else she had in mind when naming it, though, surely it was not the usual pre-phrase, "As Easy as..."!

The tonal-induced design is more evident in the photo than in viewing the actual quilt, so my friends and I just had to step back and look at this one again (and again). 

Don't you love the four patches in the border???