24 August 2012

FMQ - August



We were really spoiled this month!  Wendy Sheppard aka Ivory Spring, was our tutor and I had been looking forward to this month from January!  Wendy does magnificent work.   She is originally from south east Asia but now lives in the US.  She graduated from university with a degree in Chemical Engineering and worked as a researcher in the world's largest ultra-low wind velocity tunnel in the world.  She has been quilting for about 7 years and her passion is free-motion quilting!!  She is now teaching quilting and her work has appeared in various magazines.

I have followed Wendy's blog, "Ivory Spring" for some time now and have regularly used her fmq designs which she so generously shares, with wonderful sketches showing exactly how to do the stitches.

Her tutorial for us was "Jester's Hats".  This was quite a tricky design to begin with but after the usual drawing and practicing on a quilt sandwich, the penny suddenly dropped and I was able to get into the swing of things!  Here is my finished challenge block.


Jester's Hats

I used a beautiful gold "Colorful" embroidery thread in my regular 80/12 needle with "I'm not sure what" in the bobbin!   This was a fun design to do and I will definitely be using it again in a quilt.  

Here is a close-up of the stitching-


And the usual drawing and practice pieces.





Thank you Wendy for sharing your wonderful ideas in the tutorial and also on your blog.  I look forward to your e-mails every day!







8 August 2012

Table Topper


Just finished a disappearing 9-patch using "Tea Cakes",  6 inch charms by Verna Mosquera for Free Spirit Fabrics.  I thought it would make a nice table topper for my next bookclub meeting.  I wonder how my Royal Albert tea set will look on it!?


Laid out on the snow we had today

                                                                                 


A close-up of the quilting which I have practiced from the fmq challenge so far.











My "Winter Wonderland" garden



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