Stupendous Stitching Class Project

Stupendous Stitching Number 1 - 9 1/4" x 12"

Batik covered with couched fibers, machine and hand embroidery

Some time ago I learned about Craftsy.com and began to take quilting courses, specifically the machine quilting courses. Of course, the good folks who run this website are excellent marketers and before long I began to add new courses.

• TIP: Sign up for Craftsy.com, get their newsletter and follow them on Facebook. Classes regularly go on sale for half price and occasionally less. Their fabric deals are great and those deals will often have discounts after they are first offered.

During one promotion I signed up for the Stitch & Slash course taught by Carol Ann Waugh. There were a number of references to her Stupendous Stitching course so I added that as well. I must confess that I'm one who rarely uses the decorative stitches on my machines. And I'm not all that enthusiastic about hand embroidery. Of course, those are key elements to the course!

I think you can tell I'm now enthusiastic about both. For this first piece I kept close to the teacher's instructions. That's what I tell students when I teach so I try to follow my own advice! I did choose to design horizontally rather than vertically.

I am really pleased with the final result! I learned a lot and will definitely include these techniques in future projects.

April 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge

With the 2011 individual tax season brought to a close at midnight April 17 I finally have a chance to relax and focus on some creative projects before gearing up in July for the 2012 tax season! Tax is a year round process with peaks of intense work during fall and winter. The guest for the April session of the Free Motion Quilting Challenge is Don Linn and it focuses on a technique for copying quilting designs on fabric using tulle. He has published a book, Sophisticated Stitches, containing 66 designs. The designs aren't where I want my free motion quilting to go at the present time but it was worth every penny for his practice suggestions. Many designs require precise backtracking over the preceding line. He says anyone can learn to do that in about an hour of practice and gives some tips on how to accomplish this. My first practice piece shows a lot of wobbles but as I practiced I became much more comfortable and experimented with speed and direction.

Following this practice I went ahead and used Don Linn's technique for copying a design on tulle. I used a dark tulle and copied the design with the suggested silver Sharpie. Since I like the Clover white marking pen that erases with heat or water I decided to see if it would mark through the tulle. It did! This is a marvelous technique and I plan to use it whenever I need to transfer a design. My practice design, taken from Sophisticated Stitches, isn't perfect but I can see definite improvement.

In addition to the Free Motion Quilting Challenge I am also taking FMQ classes at Craftsy.com. I highly recommend their classes and will be blogging about some of my projects as time goes on. Happy quilting!