My First Attempt at Free Motion Machine Quilting

These are pictures I took of my first attempts at free motion machine quilting from my lessons while watching my new DVD:

The Beginner's Guide to Fast and Easy Free-Motion Machine Quilting "Fast and Free" Volume 0.5

First was stippling and then loops. I even tried the loops with the stars and also with the hearts.

I thought I would be terrible at trying to do the loops and the hearts but I they were not as hard as I thought they would be. I think I've used up about 10 of my quilt sandwiches so far with my practice lessons.

Free Motion Machine Quilting

Earlier this year I decided I wanted to try to get brave enough to learn free motion machine quilting on my sewing machine. I have been doing hand quilting for the past 3 years and love doing it but decided I needed to be able to finish some quilts in a shorter amount of time or I would never get all my quilt tops finished and I want to be able to make MORE!

I had learned of Patsy Thompson's DVD's for machine quilting and watched some segments of her DVD's on her website. http://patsythompsondesigns.com/

Something about the way she presents her instructions caught my attention and inspired me to put my "mind to it" and learn to do free motion quilting. The first DVD I ordered was The Beginner;s Guide to Fast and Easy Free-Motion Machine Quilting "Fast and Free" Volume 0.5

The first thing Patsy does in this DVD is go over the basics.......which are the most important thing of all. The second important thing I learned is you must PRACTICE - PRACTICE - PRACTICE!!! She recommends making quilt sandwiches and shows how to make them. They are used to practice the machine quilt lessons on. The first thing I did was was make myself a generous stack of these little quilt sandwiches. Since I made my practice quilt sandwiches earlier this year I have watched the DVD over and over a few times while doing my hand quilting. Patsy's DVD's are very relaxing for me to watch.

I believe it was back in Feb. or March that I made my sandwiches and finally this past weekend decided it was time to be brave and start machine quilting!!

Flower Bouquets

I received two beautiful flower bouquets at work last week celebrating my 30 year anniversary at the office!

Still Stitching on 2008 CQ Project

I'm still hand stitching all the seams of the quilt top with a fern stitch. I have one more seam on the horizontal before I start on the vertical....or it may be the other way around!! I stitch on the seams in the evenings while watching TV. I wanted to keep this quilt top simple and finish it soon but while stitching the seams on it I'm thinking I may do alittle more embellishing on it. Not sure what that might be just yet.

Another Folded Star Hot Pad

Last weekend I made another set of Folded Star Hotpads to give to a friend for her birthday. They are so easy and fun to make!

Dachshund Pillow

My friend Vicki gave me this beautiful fabric 2 years ago. I came across it a few weekends ago and right away made it into a pillow top to put our living room. I put a feather pillow form inside to its really soft!!