Showing posts with label Free Motion Mavericks. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 24, 2025

Bloomers and Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays

Hi and welcome! 🎄🎅 Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! I'm thrilled that you've taken the time to drop by and read this post. Today is Christmas eve and I know that many people start their celebrations tonight. To my family in Denmark, Glaedelig Jul!

Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays

Christmas/Winter door hanging (2015)

Bloomers SAL

Today is the last day to share our progress on the Bloomers Sew Along. Thanks so much Denise for creating this fun event. It looks like even if we had two weeks to make each panel, it wasn't enough....I suspect that for me, it's never enough!😁

Here it is! I finished 7 panels.

Seven panels of the Bloomers Sew Along

These are the three panels that I finished last night.

The fabric for these flowers were donated by my darling DIL. I once told her that when she was finished with her blouse, to please give it to me. I thought that I would get it in a couple of years, but last year, she gave it to me. 😍Isn't she a sweetheart?

Made from darling DIL's blouse!

This panel was made with batik scraps but I had heard that you can use FMQ to zigzag. I can attest that it's doable, but I would need lots of practice. The stitching is not great, but it's fine when not examined too closely. 😁

Not so great FMQ zigzag experiment

I made the cute bird house panel. I'm hoping to add a bird or two in there. I embroidered it last night but I still have to stitch down the appliqué, with a regular zig zag.😉

Bird house panel

Plans, goals & dreams for 2026 linking party

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, there doesn't seem to be a linking party for 2026's plans - so I'll be hosting one. The party begins December 30th and ends January 10th. Hopefully that's enough time to figure something out! 😀 Check out yesterday's post for details.

Linking party

What I learned

I enjoyed participating in the Bloomers Sew Along. I did try out a few techniques to make my flowers so I hope that it'll look cohesive enough.
I will do one more panel and then figure out how I want to finish it. I really love the hexies so it will probably include those.
I suspect that more time for a Sew Along doesn't make much difference - I'm not likely to finish anything within the time limit!
So, you can use the zigzag stitch while FMQ. The only reason that it might be worth getting good at this, is that you can see so much better when you're using the darning foot. I even tried to do a regular zigzag stitch but using the darning foot. It wasn't any better. I'll have to practice and figure something out so that I can do better appliqués.
Do you like the photo that I used for the button for the Plans, goals & dreams for 2026 linking party? I got to sit in a window seat on my way back from Copenhagen and saw the most amazing sun rise. I will eventually do some kind of art work from the photos. They are all amazing!

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 563 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a VERY productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts has another published quilt, this one in American Quilter. This lovely quilt is Trillium Trail.

Preeti's lively Trillium Trail

Melva of Melva Loves Scraps had her 2025 Year in Quilts post. Here is one that I haven't featured.

One of Melva's finished quilts in 2025

Deb from A Scrappy Quilter had a lovely scrappy quilt, 8s and 10s that she gave at Christmas.

Deb's scrappy 8s and 10s quilt

Gail of Quilting Gail has announced the 2026 Stay At Home Round Robin (SAHRR). Here is one of the quilts that she made during this challenge.

One of Gail's SAHRR finished quilts

Here is the button - you'll want to add that to your blog!

Margo of MY Quilts and Crafts had a lovely baby girl quilt as her final finish for 2025.

Margo's baby girl quilt

Kate from Life in Pieces quilted two cat trivets that her daughter made. She used her walking foot.

Kate quilted these two cat trivets!

It's now your turn!

Thursday, December 18, 2025

Christmas mat finish

Bonjour and welcome! 😃I hope that you've had a good week. Nope, I'm not ready, not at all!!!! I did however finish my second Christmas mat.

Hand-stitched mats

For the November Table Scraps Challenge, I made two very scrappy Christmas mats. I had a wonderful time stitching them with a running stitch. I finished the second one this week.

Two Christmas mats with running stitches

For the first mat I used only a couple of yarns - green perle cotton and red linen. All of the stitches went in the same direction. For the second mat, I wanted to shake things up 😁. I used many different colours of both perle cotton and linen yarn. The stitches went in many different directions, including in a circle and diagonally!

Second mat with running stitches

First mat - in two colours and yarns

Hand-dyed silk thread

Last week I received this amazing hand-dyed silk thread. I ordered it from Karen Turner in the UK. I chose a package of 5 pink/purple silk thread. They are so pretty! I did start stitching with one of them.

Hand-dyed silk thread by Karen Turner

Stitching a leaf on my not-so-daily stitching project

My stitches are not very good - I'll need more practice, and possibly a finer needle, to get the hang of stitching with such fine thread.

A Win!

I want to thank Gail of Quilting Gail and Sandra of mmm quilts for the lovely Arabesque quilt pattern. Gail made a sample for Sandra's new quilt pattern and I won the draw. You can see Sandra's quilt, "Happy Christmas" in FM Mavericks below 😊

What I learned

I didn't even think of stitching the first mat in different directions, but when I got to the second mat, I just wanted to do something different!
I stitched with three colours of linen yarns. Even if it was tricky getting them into the needle, I love the heavier stitches.
The Snowman in the photo was my mother's. We teased her about it because it had the same hat as she did 😀
Stitching with the silk thread takes getting used to. I had forgotten how fine it is. It's lovely using it as a double strand but then you really have to watch the tension. No worries, it's well worth it and it will be fun playing with!
There is a local yarn shop that is closing down next month, because the owner is retiring. I've been in there twice in the last few weeks. The green yarn that I used for the leaf above is a very fine cotton yarn from Japan. I love stitching with yarn that isn't necessarily intended for embroidery. It's so much fun experimenting!

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 562 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts made a wall hanging and a runner using Angela Walter's panels.

Kat's FMQ wall hanging panel

Kat's FMQ from the back

Runner panel FMQ by Kat

You can see the FMQ on the
back of Kat's runner panel

Sandra from mmm quilts has a new pattern, Arabesque, that she quilted up using lovely Christmas fabrics. Happy Christmas is a lovely wall hanging! Sandra stitched-in-the-ditch and then some meandering.

Sandra's Happy Christmas wall hanging

Details of Sandra's Happy Christmas

It's now your turn! 😊

Thursday, December 11, 2025

Updates and FM Mavericks

Hi and welcome! 😊 I'm so glad that you're here. It's snowing In Ottawa, but it's not the heavy wet snow, so that's a relief! I have some updates and progress to share with you today.

Christmas Panel - a flimsy

Christmas Panel, ready to be sandwiched!

I really, really hope that my DIL will love it as much as I do! It was so much fun to make. Yesterday I checked the backing fabric and yes, I have enough. I cut it up to fit on the back. It'll be tight but fine. Now to take out the batting and take everything to the dining room to pin it together.

Christmas Mat

I finished stitching the first Christmas mat - and had a photo shoot with my mother's Christmas teddy bear. I used green perle cotton and a red linen yarn that is thicker than perle cotton but still fits in the eye of my needle!

Christmas mat stitched with cotton and linen yarns

More poses!

Desert Landscape

Finally, I have also finished and given the Desert Landscape to hubby. It's now in his home office.

Finished Desert Landscape

In case you're wondering, here are a couple of photos of how I finished the piece in the hoop. I didn't mention the details of finishing Sunset Over Water but I remembered that I hadn't cut the excess fabric well around the hoop, so I made sure to measure before cutting it. That did help in the finishing.

Cutting the excess fabric evenly

After that, I added fabric glue (Aleene's Tacky Glue) on the top of the inner wooden hoop and pressed the fabric down. The next step was to add a piece of felt or flannel inside the finished hoop. I also wrote an inscription but managed to glue it upside down! 😂

Bunching up the fabric before covering it up

What I learned

Measuring the excess fabric around the hoop, before cutting it, made a difference to the finishing of the piece.
Next time though, I should check that the backing inscription is positioned correctly!
There are many different ways of finishing a hoop. So far, I think that this is my favourite - fast and easy!
I'm really looking forward to FMQ the Christmas Panel. I'm not sure what I'll do, but it will be simple! I do enjoy stitching around elements of a panel or fabric, so that's probably what I'll do for the inside.
This mat was stitched with running stitches going in the same direction. I'm having fun switching that around for the second mat!😄

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 561 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Kat from Scrapbox Quilts finished up this beauty, Crimson Christmas. She did learn that matchstick quilting takes a long time and can result in a stiff quilt. It's still a gorgeous quilt and will make a lovely wall hanging!

Crimson Christmas made by Kat

Melva, from Melva Loves Scraps, finished Memory Keeper III.

Melva's Memory Keeper III

Deb, A Scrappy Quilter finished her first Hip Hop Hopscotch quilt. She FMQ each whirly gig block with a stylized swirl surrounded by flower petals. What a sweet quilt!

Hip Hop Hopscotch quilt by Deb

Deb FMQ a stylized flower over each whirly gig

Sandra Walker of mmm quilts finished a UFO last week. Kindred Spirit was a quilt along hosted in 2017. You'll want to read more about it in Sandra's post!

Sandra's Kindred Spirit, a gorgeous UFO finish!

Details of the FMQ on Kindred Spirit by Sandra

It's now your turn!😍

Wednesday, December 03, 2025

December OMG and Table Scraps Challenge

Bonjour and welcome! 😄 I've managed to get a few things done! Yay!!!!

December's OMG

I mentioned in my last post that I would be working on my Christmas panel quilt, one of my SAHRR 2025 projects. Well, it turns out that after putting together the Cowboy panel quilt, this second one was a breeze! It came together without any re-stitching which is quite the accomplishment when you're making it up as you go along. 😂

All four borders ready to attach

I found it difficult to decide on the fabrics to use for the borders. At first I wasn't going to have a border and I was just going to use "quiet" fabrics between each block, but it was just too chaotic. I was doubtful as I was doing it, but after looking at the picture, I knew that it was NOT going to happen!

A failed experiment

I was hoping to use blue in the border but none of the blue fabrics were correct. I also didn't have the right green. So, going through my fabrics, I found a checkered fabric that had all of the right colours!

The perfect inner border

I then looked at my friend's finished Christmas panel quilt. We bought these panels last year to make together. She finished her quilt early in 2025, but I made it for the SAHRR and it took a while to make, especially since it was one of two quilts!

My friend Sylvie's Christmas panel

Isn't the yellow amazing as a border? I was lucky to find a large piece of bright yellow fabric in my stash. After making the pieces around the blocks, I should have enough for the binding.

Borders around the quilt

At this point I've added three of the borders - I just need to add the bottom border. It will then get sandwiched and quilted! 😊 That is a reasonable December One Monthly Goal (OMG).

Table Scraps Challenge

I really wanted to make something for the November Table Scraps Challenge. After all, the colours were ours to choose and the theme was ~~music~~ book or movie. Since I was playing with Christmas fabric scraps, I decided to make a couple of small mats that I will stitch up using colourful running stitches. I'm not finished stitching them, but that's something that shouldn't be rushed.

As for a song (sorry, it should have been a book or movie!), I'm going to say that the song "River" came up most often as I was working on this. Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded it (1971) and it was later recorded by Sarah McLachlan (2006).

Two Christmas fabric mats - lot of colours!

First mat - stitching with colourful running stitches

The second mat, ready to stitch

The backs of the mats

What I learned

After working on the Christmas panel quilt, I'm happy to say that I'm no longer in denial about Christmas coming!
I was really surprised by how quickly the Christmas panel quilt came together. I'm happy because it shows that I did learn a lot making the first one!
I'm so grateful that I had the fabric necessary to finish the borders around the quilt.
I looked in my Christmas fabric stash and found a nice print for the back, so it should be easy enough to piece together and then sandwich.
I'll be putting together a post with all of the links to the Christmas panel quilt like I did for the Cowboy quilt. At this time, I'm just including my last post on the Christmas panel. It has all of the related links
I'll enjoy slow stitching the Christmas mats.

Related links

SAHRR Week 6 and Free Motion Mavericks, February 27, 2025

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, including the December OMG and the November Table Scraps Challenge. Why not check some of these out, after linking up below? Monday Musings, Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Put your foot down, Off The Wall Friday, Finished (Or Not) Friday, Beauties Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2025, Oh Scrap!

FM Mavericks

Welcome to week 560 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a very productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Kat of Scrapbox Quilts FMQ this fun Go Blue banner. She used a new attachment that was a bit of a disappointment. Kat quilted around all of the elements of the fabric.

Go Blue banner FMQ by Kat

Donnalee made another lovely placemat for Zoey, her dog. This one is a Christmas mat. As well, she made this storage bag that will be sold at the guild's show.