Thursday, October 07, 2021

Planning and FMQ with Free Motion Mavericks

Hi! I've finally started on my son's quilt. I've been planning the designs, which are loosely based on my mother's hand quilted designs from Stéphane's original quilt. I also free motion quilted (FMQ) the first little section.😊

Planning the FMQ designs

I'm not that technically advanced when it comes to FMQ but I did use my trusty PowerPoint program to map out the original designs and send my son some suggestions for changes. Here is my FMQ design map. If you click on the image, you'll get a larger image.

Map on PowerPoint of my mother's original quilting designs

I wanted to start FMQ so that I would have something to show you today. Nothing complicated but it's a good start.

These designs are at the bottom right corner of the quilt. There are hearts connected to friends. These are original designs that my mother used, although they've been adapted for free motion quilting.

Hearts to symbolize the love of friends and family

Friends & Hearts

There are the friends - silhouettes of people holding hands

I spent last evening looking through my e-books for FMQ designs that I can use. Stéphane and I agreed that one of the areas will have nature scenes on it - fishing, camping, trees and possibly animals. My mother had quilted one of the red strips with rainbows, so I suggested that I FMQ various weather designs such as rainbows, snow flakes, rain, etc.

What I learned

It took me much longer to stitch-in-the-ditch than it should have. The warm weather didn't help and I had forgotten what a pain quilting a queen size quilt on a domestic is. I think that it was worse for the stitch-in-the-ditch since most seams ran across the whole quilt. When doing FMQ, at least it's one area at a time, and you don't travel quite so quickly.
I had planned to use only two colours of thread in the bobbin so that the back would look better, but as I practiced stitching with the blue-gray thread, there was no way that my tension was going to be good enough. I've now decided to use what ever bobbin thread that I need. There are only about six different colours of fabric in the quilt anyway. Good tension on the front is worth a more colourful back.
Once my son and I figure out what is to be quilted, it should go fairly quickly...I hope 😊 At least there is enough variety of designs to keep me interested!
For all my Canadian readers, Happy Thanksgiving! I'm going up north to visit friends and family, ~~pig out~~ enjoy some good food and see the changing colours (they are ahead of us by at least 2 weeks!) Take care!

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 350 of Free Motion Mavericks. It's been longer than a fortnight since we last saw each other. A break is not such a bad thing, especially as things start getting hectic in the fall. I'm glad to say that it's no longer too hot for me to FMQ in my studio, which is why I started on my son's quilt again.

If you didn't see Sandra's quilt, "The Light Within", then you need to get over there to check it out. Sandra of mmm quilts her FMQ her projects on her longarm. She's both proficient and prolific 😊

This quilt was published in the latest Make Modern magazine (issue 42). She took some great pictures, but I want you to see her quilting!