free motion quilting

Eight Weeks of Learning with the FMQ Challenge

I’ve just finished attaching the binding to my completed challenge quilt, and what a journey it has been! I joined the Fall 2019 FMQ Challenge to fulfill one of my goals for the year: to attend a quilting workshop or class. Angela Walters of Quilting Is My Therapy was our excellent instructor, releasing a couple…

Feather & Fern

I’m working my way across my Bright Sisters quilt top using a different quilting design in each color block area. For the yellow & green square-in-a-square areas, I chose this half-feather, half-fern design. Before attempting this design on the quilt, I drew variations of it on my iPad and practiced on scrap blocks. I tried…

Quilting Bright Sisters

Nearly two years after finishing the quilt top, I’m finally hip-deep in quilting Bright Sisters. This is my version of the Color Block Quilt designed by Carl Hentsch of 3 Dog Designs, which I first saw on an episode of The Midnight Quilt Show. It was love at first sight. I couldn’t wait to make…

Quilt Finish: The Color of Time

I’m pleased to present the largest quilt I’ve completed to date: The Color of Time. It finished at 90″ x 108″ and I pieced and quilted it on my sit-down machines. The pattern is adapted from Dimensions by Amy Ellis of Amy’s Creative Side, which includes instructions for twin and king quilts but not a…

Creating a Queen-Sized Quilt on a Sit-Down Machine

The idea of quilting a queen-sized quilt without a mid- or long-arm machine and quilting frame seems daunting, but I did it… and you can, too! I own a quilting frame and I love it. It’s the older wooden Gracie frame from The Grace Company (no longer available from them, but sometimes you can find…

Presenting: Wheel of the World

My first honest-to-goodness commissioned quilt is finished! Here is Wheel of the World: If you live in the Pacific Northwest and you want to see it in person, it will be hanging in the Everett Quilt Show next week (April 25-27) in Everett, WA. This quilt began its journey nearly two years ago with a…

13 Things I Learned while Making That Awful Quilt

I made these nine Ohio Star blocks almost 20 years ago for a swap, but I didn’t send them. I can’t recall now whether I dropped out or remade new blocks to send, but I clearly remember thinking that I could never inflict these monsters on some poor innocent quilter. The points were either floating…

Troubleshooting Free-Motion Quilting: Breaking thread

I was quilting a small wall hanging on my sit-down machine last week and got really frustrated when my top thread kept breaking. I was almost done with the project and was quilting the border with a ferny vine pattern, and every few inches of stitching, I had to stop and tie off the broken…

Block 69 Full Circle

I really like how the quilting came out on this block! It was a little tricky to piece, but definitely worth it. When I quilted it, I wanted to emphasize the stripes in the top half of the circle, so I quilted straight lines about 1/4″ or so apart. In the bottom half, I used…

Bonus Block: Butterfly Charm Block (Pepper)

I included this block in my Splendid Sampler quilt because I came across the pattern while working on the Sampler and it delighted me. I added a little extra framing to make it the right size, since the pattern has the blocks finishing at 5″ instead of the 6″ needed for the Sampler. I love…

Block 29 Scrappy Happy Heart

One of the nicest things about joining the Splendid Sampler Quilt-Along was discovering new (to me) quilters and designers. Christa Watson, who designed this block, was one of those discoveries. I love her blog and her easy and happy quilt designs. This was one of my favorite blocks to piece. I have mixed feelings about…

Block 28 Stitching Fashion

The original design for this block includes the dress, a spool of thread, and a needle, but I decided the dress would be enough of a challenge on its own. It was paper pieced and some of those pieces are tiny (all the Sampler blocks finish at 6″ square, not including the blue borders). I’ve…

Block 21 Sweet Candy

When I chose the quilting for this block, I decided to echo the candy theme with some ribbon candy in the center square and then use loops in the orange triangles to suggest the crinkly edges of a candy wrapper. I practiced continuous curves in the lighter background squares (clearly, more practice is needed) and…

Block 16 Pieces of Friendship

I love how this block comes together. It looks complicated, but Lindsay’s design is deceptively simple. When this block came up in my to-quilt pile, I had just learned the fern design (Angela Walters again, I love her Craftsy classes) and I wanted to practice it, so I decided to use it in the dark…