Tuesday, April 02, 2013

My Practice FMQ

I am still working on the Craftsy Class in Free Motion Quilting with Leah Day.   Much MUCH more practice is clearly required before I will be proficient at it as you will see in the pictures.

Still I am sharing my attempts even though they are far less than perfect.  I am having fun with it.
First up, someone asked if I was pebbling on the block with the circle feather.  The answer is Yes!  I did that as the background for the block.  And I finished that block last night.  I have some threads that I didn't realize needed burying, so I cropped the picture. Haha.

Then tonight I worked on a design that is supposed to be done on star type block.  The star points were supposed to be left unquilted.
This is really a lemony yellow and I quilted it with purple thread for a high contrast. 
Leah calls the echoing partial circles "echo shell.   Mine look more like "rippled shell." Ha ha.  And since I didn't have the color in the piecing to go by - I have a section that I consider a humility block.  I should have rotated the picture - it is at the top center.  Oops!

I am finding that I don't do nice even curves yet.  I will keep trying, but maybe I will not do spirals and echo shells a lot on my quilts.  However, I may use rippled shell - I like the organic look of it. I think it would be fun on a wonky pieced block.

Edit - After a good night's sleep, I think I like it!

9 comments:

Lynn said...

Are you familiar with TED Talks? I watched one today in which the speaker said it takes the average person 10 years to become "good" at something. It doesn't even really matter what that something is, but anything that requires practice to learn a skill requires an average of 10 years to master. So don't be hard on yourself yet if your FMQ isn't perfect!

Marjorie said...

Those echo curves are very hard on both free motion and on freehand longarm. Leah is really good is all I can say. I can do some fancy quilting, but my echo curves look like yours. And I agree, the organic look is nice. What always amazes me is how much better my quilting looks to me after 24 hours. :)

Pat Merkle said...

I think it looks fab! You are being way too hard on yourself. You don't look at a quilt with a microscope, you look at it from a distance. The "organic" wobbles adds to the handmade quality. If you want perfect, have a computer do it! Now go quilt! ;)

Vicki W said...

Personally I think that all that matters is that it look consistent. If you had shown me the yellow block without describing it I would have declared it wonderful. It's very uniform in design and density and has a nice organic feel to it. This can be "your style" while you practice other styles.

Tangos Treasures said...

Yay!! They both look great!!

Jean(ie) said...

Don't be so hard on yourself. It looks great!

Rhonda said...

I think you are do really well. Your artistic side, I think is very helpful. Great job Gene!!

Beth said...

Love that organic feel. You are really doing great with the FMQ. I am impressed.:) Quilt on!

Barbara said...

I agree, too hard on yourself. And your title, "My Bad FMQ" .....excuse me?! Gene, keep in mind that if it was perfect, you might as well not bother. Ship it out to a long-arm instead. Then where would your personal touch be???
I love it.