Floral Update and a Finished Piece on Free Motion Mavericks

Hello and welcome! I hope that my Canadian readers had a good Thanksgiving. I know that it's about more than good food and being with friends and family but I'm thankful that the food was good 😋! I am also very thankful to everyone who reads or even just looks at the pictures each week. It means a lot to me. You have my gratitude.

Floral Fusion Update

As you may know, I've been making my Floral Fusion blocks and following along with Denise at The Quiltery. Once I figured out who was getting this lovely quilt, I was able to sew the pieces together in a wall hanging.  

Floral Fusion quilt top done!

I had done about half of the smaller blocks and all of the larger blocks. When I put the blocks together on my board, I was just missing one extra block to make a wall hanging. Once it was done, it was a matter of looking at the different options for the blocks. Here's some of my thinking.

First attempt: I found that the very dark leaves in the top two flowers on the right were too strong.

First attempt

Second attempt: I moved a couple of the larger flowers around. I thought that the top right flower wasn't visually strong enough. 

Second attempt

Third attempt: again I moved some of the larger flowers around. The balance was better but I wanted to bolder flowers in the centre column.

Third attempt

Final choice: I exchanged the large flowers at the top so that the more dominant flower was in the centre.

Final placement of Floral Fusion wall hanging

Once this was figured out, I started sewing the columns together. I'm not sure if it was my tension but my machine kept eating the beginning of each section that I was sewing. I used my walking foot, so that might be it, but anyway, I wasn't in the mood to fiddle around with my machine or the foot. I did what most quilters would do in this situation. I sewed a leader block before starting to stitch the Floral Fusion blocks. This was the first time that I had done this.

Using a leader block to stop or ignore the
bunching up at the edge of a seam

For those who are not familiar with this, here's what happened. Sometimes when you start sewing at the very edge of the fabric, the thread bunches right up. It's like the machine wants to eat the fabric. It happens mostly if there is a seam near the edge but in this case, it was just two pieces of fabric. This is VERY frustrating. Some quilters will start their sewing with an extra block to stitch (the leader). I assume that they either start about ⅛" from the edge of the leader or they just live with the bunching up. Either way, if you place the piece that you want to sew right at the end of the leader block, the machine won't eat this new block. 

Strips of 2½" wide fabric

I used scraps from Floral Fusion to make leader blocks. I cut strips of 2½" wide fabric and then sewed them before every seam. Many quilters will do this and after a while, they will have enough leaders to make a quilt. 

Paisley Collage

I finished up the piece that I started during the Nature's Narrative Workshop with Alice Vander Vennen. I had pulled it apart after the workshop because I liked the elements but not the design. This final design is better but I'm not sure that I like it.  

Paisley Collage finished

My piece before pulling it apart 

What I learned

• I'm really happy with my Floral Fusion wall hanging. It was so much fun to make. Thanks so much Denise for a lovely sew along. It looks like this might be one of the first times that a sew or quilt along doesn't end up as a UFO! 
• I love playing on the design wall to see how the blocks can be placed. I adjusted the blocks but really, any of those placements would have been fine.
• After our last guild meeting, I took a small quilt home from our Community Projects to quilt. I'll use this as an excuse to quilt both of these. Then the guild will have another charity quilt and my daughter will have her new wall hanging. 😊Bonus - apparently I won't have to bind the charity quilt!!!
• I've decided to use the pillowcase technique to finish the Floral Fusion quilt. In theory it should be the same as a small piece. I'll find out and let you know!
• I'm glad that my workshop piece is finished. One of the things that I don't like about it is the frame. I know that framed art looks more like "art" but it's not my favourite, especially a cheap IKEA frame.
• I have an idea for re-purposing one of my previous piece. If I can get it done during the weekend, I'll share it with you. It would be a great way to re-finish a piece that I liked but didn't love. I'm hoping that it will all work, without too much fussing. We'll see. 😉

Related links

• Floral Fusion Posts
• A bit of this and that and Free Motion Mavericks, September 26, 2024
• Floral Fusion and hand-stitching on Free Motion Mavericks, September 05, 2024
• Floral Fusion Sew Along with Denise at The Quiltery
• Nature's Narrative Workshop and Free Motion Mavericks, May 23, 2024

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to the Floral Fusion Sew Along link-up as well as many other fun parties. Why not check them out? Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Midweek Makers, Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Beauties Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2024, Oh Scrap!,

Great News: Floral Fusion was featured on Needle & Thread Thursday. Thanks Kelly!

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 503 of Free Motion Mavericks! Thanks for linking up. It was a productive week but not necessarily in the FMQ department, so I'm going to feature the quilt finish as well as some very amazing purses - not quilted but gorgeous! 

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts used her walking foot to quilt her gorgeous Star of Wonder topper. She tried to do Free Motion Quilting but it just didn't want to! Don't you hate that? Anyway she got it all done with her walking foot. It's going to look lovely on a table!

Kat's Star of Wonder topper

Island Batik had their What's in Your Bag Challenge and both Gail and Preeti did an outstanding job on their bags. I'm always so impressed because I know that bags are fiddly and they did a great job!

Here are Gail's small and large Payday bags.

Gail's small and large Payday bags

Next we have Preeti's small and large Snapshot bags.

Preeti's small and large Snapshot bags

It's now your turn!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter