The Quilt Skipper

quilting makes me skip for joy

Jenny K Lyon

Quilting makes me skip for joy

July Free Motion Quilting Challenge

This month’s challenge on SewCalGal’s blog is by Angela Walters, a professional long armer, author and young Modern Quilter. She showed us how to use “tiles” as background fill. I really like the concept and probably will use it in future projects-thank you Angela!

I have to admit, I am currently on the cusp of being burned out, so I only did a small section. My Visible Learning Curve is present: you will see in the lower left hand corner I started out using a different motif in each tile. That looked too busy. So I started to use the bubble motif in each tile-much better. But still, the tile part of “tiling” didn’t really show up. Finally at the end I made the surrounding frame fatter and that I liked. Also, this would have benefitted greatly from a better thread choice. Because there is a significant amount of backtracking involved, this would be much better with 100 wt silk thread. See how it gets a bit thready?I had to take this photo showing the work in shadow-don’t ya just love the texture that wool batting gives? All those plump little areas are so filled with texture-love that!

Comments

  2. Jenny – I found the fatter borders looked better too. Your work look amazing. I really like the effect of the wool batting. I’m going to have to try that soon.
    Barb@Witsend

    • Thank you Barb-I just checked out your blog and see you came to the same conclusion about the borders! Fun blog-I’m subscribed now!

  3. Jenny, I also like the fat borders better. And I like the consistency of the same design in each of the tiles, be it pebbles, stippling, or whatever. The wool batt provides wonderful texture!

    • Thanks Laura-I always have to stitch it out before I figure out what looks best, sigh!

  4. Oh dear. . . I checked out the SewCalGal’s site. I think I’m in trouble. Thank you! I wonder what using just 2 patterns in the tiles would look like.

  5. Yes Franki-the Challenge is pretty cool and it’s very interesting to see what everyone is doing. 2 patterns might be very interesting. I do think I will be using this motif.

  6. Yes, I like the wider borders better too, but especially I love the way your pebbles pop in these photos!

    • Thank you for that encouragement-I think I need to walk away for just a bit, but I have so much to do! It’s a cycle. As to the stitching, I do try to show my ups and downs, my “Visible Learning Curve”.

  8. Hi, Jenny. Thanks for the encouraging comment about MY “visible learning curve.” I decided I just have to work through it, knowing that the quilting on this quilt is the best I can do TODAY, and I won’t ever get better at it if I give up just because it isn’t perfect. And it’s ugly… I considered ripping out those “flame” things after I’d done eight blocks, but there were too many places where the stitches accidentally got really tiny and I don’t think I COULD get them out without damaging the quilt.

    Your July sample is lovely — you have one fill pattern that reminds me of little coffee beans! They are probably really leaves, now that I look closer, but if you rounded off the tip instead of having a point, they would look just like the beans I ground for my morning coffee. I love your pebbles, too.

    • Rebecca-You have the PERFECT attitude for success! “Just move forward” is my motto. Today’s quilting cannot be perfect, I can only get better every day. If I spend my days ripping out what I do not like, I will not move forward. Go girl!