In the spring I picked up the book "First Steps to Free-Motion Quilting "by Christina Cameli. What I like about this book is that she has simple projects that you can start practicing on. One of the beginner projects is a bowl that you start by tracing an outline of a circle and then fmq a spiral starting in the middle. Although it is listed as a beginner project I had my doubts that a free motion spiral would be easy, although to her credit she says you can use any pattern you are comfortable with. Here is a picture of one of the two spirals I worked on. It started out o.k. in the middle but definitely got more difficult as the spiral got larger.
Although I wasn't totally satisfied with this spiral I was having a lot of fun so pulled out a practice sandwich and started playing around. Here is a sampling of the results.
My practicing seemed to be going pretty well. My comfort level has gone up quite a bit. I'm very happy with the pebbles. Christina includes a pattern for a pillow using a pebble design so I will most likely work on that in future . There are quite a few projects in her book that I think would be great little projects to practice on.
I moved on to something functional but simple. I work in a store and we often put out samples for customers on wooden t.v. trays. Over time the trays have gotten scratched so I decided to make mats to cover the scratches. My boss asked for a food theme and I happened to have some apple fabric in the stash bought for a project I never got around to. Here's a close up of the quilting on one of them. It's a simple edge to edge pattern included in the book.
These were not the most exciting projects but definitely low investment so good for practice. I just might get to putting the binding on these little mats today in which case I will be hand stitching some binding, or I may hand baste a few more hexies. Here are the latest additions to my growing hexie pile.
These bring the count up to 25. Once again linking up to Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathysquilts and the Monday Morning Star Count at Life Under Quilts
10 comments:
I love how you are practicing with FMQ. I am trying to get better at it, but it is a big challenge. Way to go!
They say that practice makes perfect / you are off to a great start :)
You are very brave. I am still working on my straight line, not sure I can ever take the leap to FMQ!
Way to go Lisa! In a few weeks you can come back to these pictures of your FMQ and see your own progress. For me, no matter how often people say: you're so good at this!, it is always when I can see it with my own eyes that I start to believe them. I do agree with you about the circles. It looks like a tough eye-hand coordination project to be a beginner's exercise. But, you can only get better at it. I love the pebbles too and the "lelelelele" looks pretty even. Congrats to a great start!!
Awesome FMQ practice pieces!! I love Christina's book and I follow her on Pinterest. She just filmed a new Craftsy class on FMQ and it should be out sometime in October. I will definitely be looking for it! Love the colors of your hexagons!
Sorry - I meant I follow her on Instagram! And you can catch her on her blog afewscraps.blogspot.
You are doing really well with your FMQ - I must try harder.
What pretty hexagons!
LOVE your hexies...and one of these days I'll be attempting to machine quilt...haven't done it in years. Yours looks wonderful.
xo
Debbie
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I've never done any FMQ but yours looks awesome.
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