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.

The Eye of the Beholder

I belong to a wonderful group of quilt artists who participate in the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge. The last Friday of the month we are presented a challenge. Similar to many challenges with a twist: we have just one week to finish the challenge! We have to think out of the box and we have to work fast.

It was the working fast that tripped me up last month. I lacked inspiration for most of the week then got into a creative frenzy. The challenge was to take or a quilt and then deconstruct it. I had a small project that I had done for another group and disliked it so much it almost went in the trash. Instead, I took my cutter and had great fun cutting it apart. The reconstruction was a series of "what if?" What if I did a loose weave? What if I experimented with different threads? What if I added an inside border?

Lots of fun and I rushed to get it finished. Problem is, I rushed too much and made a horrible mistake. One that couldn't be corrected. No way. No how. What to do? I decided to go ahead and finish the quilt. Could someone see the mistake? Doubtful. Could someone feel the mistake? Possibly. Do tell ...when was the last time you saw someone go into a home and take art off the wall?

As I usually do, I took the quilt into my office to be admired. All artists like to get ego-stroking and I can rely on my co-workers to give me appropriate stroking. No one said "hey, I see a mistake!"

Now that you have admired, it's time for me to confess what I will use forever as a "teaching moment" with my students. I had dutifully spent a few minutes practicing my free mothing quilting. Being rushed I wasn't quite as careful as usual. I didn't realize I had very neatly quilted a section of my practice piece to my top! Ouch!

I cut as much away as I could then fused on a back and applied a binding.

Now you know the secret. Can you see it?

-- Joanna