Thursday, July 23, 2020

Planning to Quilt Stars on Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks, Week 290. Yesterday I searched the internet to find some fun free motion quilting (FMQ) designs for the 6 star blocks in the Pinwheels and Stars Baby Quilt. 

Star Block FMQ Designs


I've been working on this quilt for a while now, but if you don't remember, here is the full quilt.

The Pinwheels and Stars Baby Quilt
All of the pinwheel blocks have been FMQ so now it's time to work on the star blocks. Here are some possible designs for quilting them.

This first one is a variation of Leah Day's Sun Star Block. The middle circle doesn't go through the diamond shapes. I really like this one. I might play with the quilting in the background - it's not part of her design. For the links to these blocks, see Related links below.

Based on Leah Day's Sun Star Block

This design is based on Star Struck, a post on the Seams French blog. I just noticed that I missed one of the corner diamonds. See, that's what practice is for 😊

A lovely design with diamonds outside of the star

This is an Angela Walters FMQ design. I'm going to have to practice it a lot before I'm ready but I love it.

Based on an Angela Walters design

This design is based on an image of a FMQ star on Flicker. The FMQ, by GF Quilts is really stunning. This is just a small part of the quilting. You'll want to check out the link below. 
Lots of curves in this design

There are 25 designs for Ohio Stars on the AQS Blog. You'll want to check them out too! This is a variation of a few of them. I would probably quilt the circles as spirals since they are much easier to quilt, but we'll see.

Many options to choose from on the AQS Blog.

This is the design that has been the most challenging to draw on the computer (more about that in the What I learned section). The middle is based on Leah Day's Flame Flower #36. I'll show you the original image when I attempt this one. I will need a lot of practice but I love the design.

Based on Leah Day's Flame Flower #36

I like the simplicity of this design. It's a combination of the AQS blog and my own design.

Simple lines can make for a good design

These are only design that I found on the Internet. I haven't even looked in my FMQ books yet! Some of these designs, or variations of them, will become reality in the next few of my posts of Free Motion Mavericks. I hope that you'll join me.

What I learned
  • I wanted my designs to look a little more professional than my last hand drawn pinwheel designs. I really didn't account for the amount of additional time that it took to draw them using the computer.
  • I don't have anything fancy - just Paint and PowerPoint. I must say that it was easier to draw than I expected - I usually stay away from drawing with Paint but after a few attempts the straight lines were easy to add. For anything more complicated I had to use PowerPoint. 
  • I recently learned about an app for the IPad but it turns out that it's too old. Where does the time fly and how crazy is it that 4 years is old!!!!
  • I should look in my books for a couple more designs - it seems a shame not to use them!
Related links
Linking parties

Free Motion Mavericks


Thanks to all of you who linked up last time 😊 It's always fun to have guests show up at the party!

This week's feature is the Fly High! quilt by Sandra of mmm quilts. It was created as one of her RSC 2017 projects and is made up of triangles....lots and lots of them! You can tell that she had a great time playing with her FMQ designs. If you didn't see it last time, check it out. It's really amazing!

Sky High! by Sandra at mmm quilts

Now it's your turn!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

4 comments:

  1. Ces dessins préparatoires sont beaux et donnent envie ! Tu vas bien t'amuser !
    Désolée pour la link party, je n'en suis pas encore au quilting...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bonjour FrĂ©dĂ©rique, j'ai hĂąte de commencer de faire du FMQ. Tu viendras au party quand tu seras prĂȘte! Prends soin de toi mĂȘme!

      Delete
  2. I enjoyed examining all of the possibilities for quilting the star blocks! I look forward to seeing what you choose in the end!

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    Replies
    1. Hi Gail, I'm looking forward to it too! I also hope to give my books a quick perusal to see if there's anything that I must add to the list.
      Take care.

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