FMQ - October

This month our fmq expert was Teri Lucas who lives in New York City.  I do hope she has been safe while "Sandy" has been wreaking havoc along the east coast of USA.  She suggested we use a piece of silk or silk/satin/cotton this month.  I stuck with my ready made challenge piece which of course is cotton so obviously I wouldn't get the same effect of the shine that the silk or satin would give.  Anyway, I am still quite satisfied with the result although I must say that dividing and conquering is not my cup of tea!  I don't really like the tiny fiddly bits of quilting.  That said, I enjoyed doing my bit and it certainly gets the imagination working overtime and getting one out of one's comfort zone!

We were to write our name more or less in the center, echo around it and then do various designs all around it.  What I did enjoy was doing the feather without a spine.  Now that was fantastic and suited my passion down to the ground!  Also we were to use different coloured thread and different weights of thread.  I used what I had in my thread collection; mostly Colorful Embroidery thread.  The red for my name is an Isacord.  Here in South Africa, the weight of the thread is not written on the reel so I'm not able to record it.  So here is my finished piece.

See those little nautilus shells.  That was different!

Thank you to Teri and SewCalGal for this interesting challenge.

FMQ - June

Cindy, you really got the creative juices flowing this month!  Cindy Needham gave us our "challenge" this month and really got us thinking "out of the box".  Thank you for letting me run free to be creative and to "just do my own thing"!  

What we had to do this month was to draw swirls across the page and fill in the patterns that developed with our own quilting design most appropriate for the space.  I found it quite a challenge when I started, but as I got going with fabric and machine, the ideas really flowed.  It was all very well practicing on paper but when I started with my challenge fabric, it was a different story!

I must say that I managed the "Hummmm Purrrrr" of my machine a good few months back, really only recognizing now that that is a wonderful way of describing what you hear with your sewing machine when you are doing free motion quilting ie. the correct speed with the design you are sewing.  In other words the rhythm and sound of your machine.

Cindy encouraged us to use the three basic shapes in free motion quilting - the repetitive line, a circle and an S-curve.  Strong geometrics and soft flowing designs are a good combo and compliment each other.  While we strive to make our quilts as beautiful and perfect as possible, remember that this world is a more interesting place because nothing is perfect and straight and this is how we should feel about our quilts.  Don't stress unduly over them, we have enough stress in our lives.  They can be imperfect and beautiful!  Whew, that took a load off my shoulders!!  We were given lots of tips while quilting and I would suggest reading them here for heaps of information. 

Here is my entry for June's challenge.

Divided and Conquered!

First of all came the doodling....

Cindy's printed swirls on which to practice

My "doodles"

Here are a few close-ups taken of my final entry.

Thank you Cindy for "stretching" me and sharing your ideas and suggestions.  And thank you once again SewCalGal for giving us the opportunity to learn from world class quilters!