Practice, Practice, Practice

I'm beginning to think about preparing to start to commence studying a possible plan for quilting this recent Rocky Road to Kansas.  Yes, my brain is NOT focused, and every time I get on a direction, some diddly nothing changes my direction - what's with that???

Here are some samples, and disappointments, or I should say, "not yet successful designs."  I was thrilled with the first McTavishing  (diamond on the right) but by the time I got to the bottom, hypnosis seems to have taken over and I totally became "lost" in the design!  Yes, I remember about half-way finished, "perhaps I need to stop for a few seconds" but I didn't.

The diamond on the left is OK and I might use it, but in softer threads.  The wonky triangles in the top middle look interesting and not as difficult as I thought.

The wiggly lines in bottom center have the right "feel" for my scrappy stars, if I use a soft blue/gray thread.

I've not machine quilted since ??? spring -- hey, a person gets rusty!  It's amazing how much improved a design becomes with a little practice.

This second practice piece is almost a total loss!  The "wormy" thing on the bottom left has possibilities.  I was using my own imagination which has a mind of it's own every 2-3 seconds! Even poor practice results are better then no results at all.  If you are not appreciating my dark thread, remember that a thread that blends will alter your surface dramatically.

My practice pieces are saved in a 3-ring binder in page protectors, just like PatsyThompson Designs.com suggests.  Many times I can't think of any design, but that practice binder always has reminders.

I am also practicing designs from www.FreeMotionProject.com, by Leah Day.  I own her big beautiful book, and added a spiral binding to it.  Free tutorials of all her designs from her book are on her site. These two generous machine quilters have given so freely.

Quilting the Border

I keep copies of dozens of free samples from PatsyThompsonDesigns.com in a notebook. Most of them I've tried, and saved my samples in that notebook. It is amazing, how often I cannot think of a quilting pattern until I open my sample work. On the left of the notebook is the paper printout and on the right is my practice piece, in a plastic page protector. Geeky, yes, but it works for me! For this quilt (Bricks and Steppingstones, from Quiltville.com) I wanted something earthy, guy-type, NOT feathers, but also wanted something where I could start at one corner and quilt one entire side without stopping. This is my viney/weedy pattern. I LOVE thinking of those wild growing vines one sees in wild spaces.

I drew an implied guideline with chalk to keep me near target -- not worried that my 'spine' is not solid. My design has leaves, swirls, curlycues, narrow leaves and wide leaves - whatever filled the space. Additionally, every variety of leaf gives me more experience. I started at the bottom of the implied vine, and machine quilted to the top, finishing it off at the top with one large leaf. My fabric is almost black so I chose a grey thread, for some visibility.

YOU can do this!

Losing things, and more toys

Don't you just HATE it when you come home from a quilting event, all fired up and ready to tackle the current project, and horrors, you do NOT find all the pieces you went with? Somewhere, I LOST about 50-75 flying geese made up in scrappy shirtings! I even have a photo of those flying geese AT the retreat. I checked my table mates, called the YMCA, cleaned out my car, folded and refolded every piece of fabric I took with me. Dang it! And you KNOW, as soon as I remake all those units, the 'lost' ones will show up! In the mean time, I'm just hanging around waiting for a miracle - like maybe someone picked them up my mistake or ...? but even worse than that, is finding them in some really stupid place, making me feel like an imbecile.

I have turned into a PatsyThompsonDesigns.com junkie, or groupie. This is her newest set of 2 videos, and once again, I DO feel more accomplished and confident (and less like an imbecile!) after watching her demos using her DSM.

Here are the results of some of my play time. I've not practiced for more than a month, so results are not great, but not bad either. It's just fun to practice like this, using different threads, etc. I save the samples and add notes to them to help me remember what I used. The first photo is my effort at a type of McTavishing -- mmm should have practiced on paper first. My favorite is the third - a kind of shell. THe shell moves along quicky and the design handles traveling well.

A Good Day!

I won, I won, I won something! Ann of http://quilttilyouwilt.blogspot.com/ offered a giveaway and just guess WHO won a book that I will definitely use? Yeppers. ME! I'll show it when it arrives. Happy Day!

(Just updated with the address ...)
Next good thing -- my Patsy Thompson DVD on machine quilting arrived several days ago and I've been glued to the Lazy Boy, wanting to absorb the gentle flowing feeling she demonstrates. This particular DVD is on leaves and vines. She has a number of DVDs and the video samples are very tempting!
I've tried a long-arm, just once, and decided that was too much machine for me, too fast, and too much fiddling. (any excuse for not being successful!) And besides, my house is too small, blah, blah, etc. And after all, the Queen of machine quilting is Diane Gaudynski, and she does her precision quilting on a DSM.

The DVD is really wonderful - I wish it had gone on another 2 hours. I am amazed my first efforts using her suggestions were not THAT difficult. The problems I had were that I can't always see what I'm doing (thread matches fabric) or the foot gets in the way of the planned design, and tonight, I had so much JUNK on my machine bed, and was too lazy to move it (to where????) so THAT impeded smooth flow, but here's how it turned out.

These are 4 practice blocks.
I did each quadrant differently. One is a feather, with swoopy curliques to fill empty spaces, the next was a leafy stem, heavily filled, then a leafy stem lightly filled, and finally, a fill of hearts and loops. The last one is what I've done for a long time, never courageous enough to get beyond my one successful design. Previously a 'style' totally escaped me, never knowing what style to use for what type of quilt.


This will be Show and Tell at Guild meeting Saturday.

One more thing - I sew on a Janome 6500 and I don't know how it happens, but every thread I've used on that machine for quilting does just fine. Every thread I put in the bobbin (reasonable) does just fine. And even the combinations, with no forethought, have done just fine. I am NOT a fusser -- good thing! I don't do ANY adjusting - it just does one great job! (Hope I haven't jinxed myself with bragging on my machine!)

A good day.