Showing posts with label Angela Walters. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 07, 2026

Back to FMQ and I Quilted This!

Allô and welcome 😊 My studio is a disaster after going away, but that hasn't stopped me from getting things done! I spent a few hours last evening adding more free motion quilting (FMQ) on the Square Dance baby quilt. It's getting there! Since my last baby quilt was given to the recipient just before his third birthday, I'm not too worried - but it would be nice to get it done sooner rather than later. I didn't make it for my September One Monthly Goal (OMG) but I'll be done in a week or two...and then on to the next one 😁

FMQ Square Dance Blocks

So far I've shared three FMQ blocks. Here are more - the ones I quilted last night are shown first while the others were quilted a while back.

The centre square features dinosaurs. I tried drawing dinosaurs based on the images in the fabric but with no luck. Then I found a pieced stegosaurus on the internet. Adapting the image from a pieced quilt was much easier. There's a close-up below.

Dinosaur block with dot-to-dot quilting
and a dinosaur

Close up of the FMQ stegosaurus

The centre fabric on this block is adventuring in the jungle. I FMQ a fern à la Angela Walters and then added vines with leaves.

Adventure block filled with ferns and leaves

The fun red fabric has all kinds of fun motifs. I FMQ rainbows at the top of the block and then a car, sun, cloud and house. There are mostly Lorry Kennedy's quilting designs. I now have the rest of the block to finish.

Rainbows, car, sun, cloud and house

There blocks were quilted after the last post on this quilt.

FMQ stars in the Star Wars block

FMQ flowers, a butterfly and squiggly lines

What I learned

Drawing a realistic dinosaur is beyond my abilities at this time but I was so happy to find a pieced stegosaurus. Since it was simplified to be pieced, it was simple enough for me to draw it. I'll have to remember that as a source of images to FMQ.
The hardest part about FMQ this quilt is coming up with the motifs. When possible, I like making it relevant to the centre block, although geometric designs can also be effective.
I'm going to publish this post early so that I can link up to the October OMG. This quilt needs to be finished soon since I can't wait to start designing the next baby quilt. I haven't let myself start until I finish this one!

I Quilted This!

Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party that celebrates quilting on a domestic machine or custom quilting on a long-arm. Feel free to link up and share any recent project, even if you're not quilting it!

Here are the posts that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and consider grabbing the button.

Terry at Ongoing Projects is still FMQ her butterfly collage quilt. You'll want to check out her post for more details!

Terry FMQ her butterfly collage quilt

Vicki from Vicki's Crafts and Quilting is now working on her fall quilts.

Vicki's Cinderella wall hanging (I just got the joke!)

Vicki finished this UFO fall table topper

Gail of Quilting Gail used to dislike appliqué - a lot! However, as she made some fun projects, she's now grown to like it! Here is one of her quilts. Check out her post for more!

Gail having fun with appliqué after making this tree skirt

It's now your turn 😍

Thursday, March 19, 2026

SAHRR , FMQ, and I Quilted This!

Hi and welcome 😊 There are so many acronyms in this blog title - I feel like I could be back at work! So my Stay At Home Round Robin (SAHRR) is almost a flimsy (quilt top) and this week I found calm by doing some free motion quilting (FMQ) on my orange scrappy baby quilt. It was a busy and productive week, and I'm glad that you're visiting!

Almost a SAHRR flimsy

Here is the top border added to the SAHRR piece. It went relatively well until I added the last piece. I was shocked when I discovered that it was about 2½" short since I was so sure that it would fit. At least it was easy to add extra fabric. You can see in the photo below that I gave it an extra inch or so for good measures. Everything will get trimmed before adding the final side borders.

SAHRR quilt with pieced side and top borders

I now have 3 blocks to add to the bottom and will do roughly what I did for the top border.

I had originally made this small block by sewing the smaller hour-glass blocks together. Unfortunately it didn't really look like hour-glass blocks.

Original small hour-glass blocks
sewn together

So I researched hour-glass quilts and found that they are usually made with a couple of colours and are set in different directions. Then I pulled apart my little block and made four more small hour-glass blocks with a purple background. I placed it within a block - so now I have the two larger blocks to set and then add the bottom border.

Three last blocks for the bottom

Next steps: The parade starts next week, so I'll have the flimsy done by then.

Sew the last three blocks into a bottom border and

Add the 4" final border.

Add the outer side borders. I don't trust my estimated measurements, so I'll see if it's the size I want once the side outer borders are on. 😕

FMQ a Scrappy Baby Quilt

I really needed a break from the SAHRR, so I got back to the scrappy baby quilt. I finished stitching it in-the-ditch, and then started FMQ. I remembered that I wanted a dot-to-dot quilting (à la Angela Walters) but somehow forgot about the dot-to-dot part and just started with Angela's Shape by Shape designs.

FMQ the scrappy quilt

The FMQ is really difficult to see because I used 100 wt. white Bottom Line thread. It worked well and I could see most of the quilting as I was doing it.

FMQ using mostly straight lines which I drew before quilting

FMQ details

Backing where you can see the stitch-in-the-ditch and some FMQ

When I realised that I wasn't actually doing dot-to-dot quilting, I took out my FMQ journal - I have attached all of Angela Walter's diagrams in it. I really want the FMQ to be light. This will be perfect.

Project Quilting 17.6 - a Happy Handful

I remembered to check on Project Quilting (PQ) and since it was a quick make, I got out some scraps and made this. The theme is to make something small enough to hold in one hand.

A handful of cuteness for Project Quilting 😍

The first block I made was the centre wonky snowball in the middle. I added pink squares around it, pieced some batting and used a cute Winnie-the-Poo fabric underneath. I put my top fabric wrong side up for the pillow case finish (it's supposed to be right side up!) but since I didn't have any specific size in mind for the piece, I just cut around the stitching, turned it right side up and re-sewed the pillow case finish.

I used my walking foot to quilt it with straight lines. A quick and fun finish!

A quick finish that I can hold in one hand!

What I learned

I was tired of working on putting the SAHRR quilt together. It felt like work, not fun, so I knew that I had to do something else.
I'm confident that I'll be able to finish the flimsy by the parade (which I'm sure will run for longer than a day!)
It was calming to do some FMQ on the baby quilt. I'm trying to keep the FMQ light. I'm also doing a lot of marking of straight lines - it's worth the effort if it means keeping my lines straight!
Making the PQ mini was nice, especially using those light spring fabrics instead of the dark ones in my SAHRR.
Not having a plan meant that I could wing it, including just making the mat smaller instead of un-stitching it to redo the pillow case finish.
You may have noticed the snow underneath my Handful of Cuteness project. Yes, it's back....Happy Spring Equinox!
The mat is very cute and I'm using it already in the living room under my stitching supplies. Thanks to Kim and Trish for another fun season of Project Quilting!

I Quilted This!

Here are the posts from last week that included FMQ, ruler work and walking foot quilting last week. Thanks for linking up 😊 and feel free to grab the button.

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts is also an Angela Walter's fan. She FMQ her large open spaces panel with all kinds of wonderful FMQ designs. You'll want to head over there and look at all of her detailed photos by clicking on them to enlarge them. Wow!

Kat's FMQ Open Spaces Challenge quilt

Details of Open Spaces FMQ by Kat

Sally of Crafts, Caves and Cooking made this insulated pizza box for last week's Project Quilting Challenge - My Compliments. Those colours really are complementary and what a practical project!

Sally's very practical pizza box

Gail from Quilting Gail made a lovely red and white baby quilt to donate for March's Red Rainbow Scraps Challenge. It's so cute! It was quilted using straight lines.

Gail's red and white baby quilt

Straight line quilting by Gail

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts made a lovely baby quilt for a co-worker. The fabrics in the quilt are so cute!

Preeti's lovely baby quilt

Cute fabric in Preeti's baby quilt

Melva of Melva Loves Scraps made a great t-shirt quilt for a client who's son is turning 21.

21st birthday t-shirt quilt made by Melva

T-shirt quilt quilted by Melva with diagonal lines

It's now your turn 😍

Thursday, December 21, 2023

T-shirt Quilt Finish on Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 461 of Free Motion Mavericks. I delivered the quilt to my nephew last night at 10:30 so that he could pack it up to bring to Denmark. He lives down the street so it wasn't a long journey. He and his roommate are tall men, so they helped me take a few quick pictures of the quilt. Thanks guys!😊

A Finished T-shirt Quilt

It's done and since I drove my nephew to the airport... I know that it's way to Copenhagen ✈

A finished queen size t-shirt quilt

I'm not going to go through all of the blocks, mostly because since I don't have the quilt with me, I can't really see from the pictures what I quilted on them! 😎 Here are just a few highlights.

I had quilted stars in the sashing of this t-shirt but wasn't sure what or with what thread to quilt the t-shirt. In the image below this one, you can see the threads that I used. I FMQ with the neon orange while I originally used the variegated thread to zig-zag stitch the "14" panel from the back of the shirt to the front.

Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) the bright orange t-shirt

Threads used to stitch the t-shirt

On the next two Ottawa Lions t-shirts, I FMQ the sashing with some dot-to-dot diamonds and other designs within the squares and rectangles. It was good to do something different.

Using dot-to-dot FMQ in the sashing

More dot-to-dot FMQ

The last t-shirt quilted was the New York one. For part of the sashing, I FMQ some lightning bolt designs. I then quilted the contour of the buildings, signs and statue. I used a pink thread to fill in the sky.

FMQ the New York t-shirt

FMQ the Border

I wasn't sure what to FMQ in the two side borders. I knew that it had to fill in the space quickly without being too fiddly. I found the design in Angela Walter's second book, Shape by Shape Collection 2. She calls it the Serpentine Clusters. It has three serpentine lines and then a row of feathers.

Angela Walter's Serpentine Clusters design in the two borders

Squaring the Quilt

I am accuracy challenged at the best of times. With a t-shirt quilt, you just make it up as you go along since most blocks are different sizes. It's difficult to square things when you can't really measure from anything. All I could do was make each side straight-ish and then see if the quilt could be folded in half properly.

Straightening the border sides

The quilt didn't past the folding or wonky test. Since these are just the borders, I knew that I could adjust them as required.

Folding the quilt lengthwise

Trimming the edges

I put together strips of the Kona Solids that I had used for sashing in the quilt. I was lucky that the sashing also used 2½" strips. I was able to use many of them for the binding and didn't have to do too much cutting.

Cutting strips after squaring the quilt

Strips of binding ready to be sewn together

I then used Quilting Jet Girl's Tips for Making / Planning a Scrappy Binding. It was very useful (see Related links below). I needed the binding colour used around the quilt to be a different colour from the fabric it was going to be attached to. Otherwise, the binding tends to recede and looks like there is no binding.

I put the quilt on our king size bed and placed each strip down where I wanted. Then I very carefully stitched them in the correct order and side. It was then time to attach the binding strip to the back of the quilt.

Attaching the binding strip to the back of the quilt

Finally I turned the binding over and stitched it using one of my fancy stitches. It was the first time that I did this, and I really like the result. My wavy stitching pattern isn't straight but it doesn't show as much as a straight stitching line that is wonky! 😁

Stitching down the binding with a fancy stitch

Here's a couple more pictures of the finished quilt. I hope that my niece will take some so that I can post them.

Part of the finished quilt

The best pictures I could get of the finished quilt

What I learned

FMQ a quilt that did not have batting was different. There is no doubt that the quilt would have been too heavy for my niece with batting.
The FMQ went well. I only had issues with tension a couple of times. I'm not sure what happened but when I re-threaded the machine, everything was fine.
All of the thread used for FMQ was polyester. The bobbin thread was Superior Thread's Bottom Line (60wt). I used two more colours of Bottom Line. There was also 4 colours of Madeira polyneon, 6 colours of Glide polyester thread and then the neon Orange polyester thread from Coats (I think). They also needed the same tension, so that was great.
As I mentioned, I used Quilting Jet Girl's Tips for Making / Planning a Scrappy Binding. I know that the colour of the binding needs to be a different colour from the fabric that it's attached to, otherwise the binding tends to recede and it ends up looking like there is no binding.
I knew that I wouldn't have time to hand-stitch the binding so I found a video, "How To Bind a Quilt on a Sewing Machine with Jenny Doan of Missouri Star". It taught me what I needed to know and except for one corner, the stitching went really well.
I decided to use the wavy stitch from my machine since I knew that a straight stitch line would not be straight. I also wanted something a little bit wide to attach the binding well.
Now that my niece's t-shirt quilt is done, I can focus on Christmas 🎄🎅 and other projects.
I'm also looking forward in participating in the usual end-of-year blogging posts. See you then!

Free Motion Mavericks

What wonderful quilts we had last week. I haven't visited everyone yet, but I will! 😊

Denise of the Quiltery (Love of Geese) made this really lovely Christmas hanging for both the Virtual Cookie Exchange and the Island Batik Ambassador Celebration Challenge.

Christmas tree and gift wall hanging by Denise

Donnalee finished her first fabric collage piece based on mushrooms that she saw on a trip to New Zealand. What a great finish!

Mushroom fabric collage piece by Donnalee

Melva of Melva Loves Scraps, finished her customer's t-shirt quilt and it's been delivered. It really looks great with the sashing and border fabrics.

Melva's finished customer's t-shirt quilt

Quilting Gail participated in the monthly Classic Car Colour Challenge hosted by Jen @ Patterns by Jen. What a great quilt! I especially like the border piecing. Gail did “Wild” or “Graffiti” quilting in the centre. The outside was quilted using Silly Moon’s Rocket ruler.