May 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge

The May 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge from SewCalGal featured Leah Day. She taught two Foundational Patterns.

For those who are not familiar with Leah, she began a project to quilt a design a day for a year. Yes! There are now over 365 designs that she has done. She has become a professional quilter. Pretty great for a young mom! While I've visited her site on a couple of occasions I've never really dug into all she has done. Now, I want to take time to do a deep dive. I highly recommend you do the same. I've added her to my favorite sites.

This table topper began as a project for the Craftsy.com class Quilting Quickly. I think I signed up for this soon after Craftsy started a year ago. The first project is a charm pack quilt. I bought a batik charm pack, put the squares together and put it aside, like so many things I have done. A recent clean-up-the-studio project (tax season is over!) reminded me of it and I put it into a UFO box.

I've been working on other Craftsy class projects but as I headed into this three day holiday weekend I reminded myself I had to get busy to do the May challenge. I decided I would use the charm UFO to learn  the technique.

Since this also  is a Craftsy project, I've written more extensively about it on the project page -- http://www.craftsy.com/project/view/Charm-Pack-Quilt/43633?fresh=true --but the summary is as follows:

Do I like this technique? No
Will I use it again? Probably not, at least not in this large scale.
Did I learn? YES!
Is my UFO finished? YES!

Here's my practice piece, enhanced to show the quilting stitches used with this technique.

I'm glad that I am participating in this challenge. I have learned a lot and very much appreciate learning from the teachers and all who are sharing their projects.