Showing posts with label Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 08, 2019

FMQ garden and pond

Welcome to the Free Motion Mavericks link-up (Week 228).

FMQ garden and pond

You may have been watching this free motion quilted (FMQ) practice piece progress in the last couple of months.
Latest of the FMQ garden and pond
It started off as a quick FMQ drawing in grey thread.
FMQ garden and pond in grey thread

Adding colour to the FMQ garden and pond
Since this "practice piece" has so much potential, I've continued adding to it. I made a list of things that could be added:
Last night's results
  • more flowers ✔
  • shrub
  • grass ✔
  • butterfly
  • bird
  • rocks ✔
  • frog
  • turtle ✔
  • fish
  • cattails
  • other pond vegetation ✔
Although the list is long, realistically it is limited by my drawing skills. I may be able to eventually draw something with practice, but at this point, I only had one more evening to finish this post!

Last night I added the Rudbeckia flowers based on Muv's great tutorial (the link is in Related links). I also added grass in front of the pond and the grey outline for a rock and more water.

Tonight I added some water, more vegetation in front of the pond, a rock with a turtle sunning herself and a few more plants in the garden. I also added some lines with a Frixion pen in order to square it so that I know how far I need to FMQ.
The pond now has a turtle sunning herself on a rock

There is more vegetation in front of the pond

There is more grass and flowers in the garden
What I learned
  • Last night I Googled "how to draw..." many of the things on my list above. I wasn't in a good learning space so my attempts to draw butterflies and fish were not successful. I know that I can do this, eventually and these don't have to be in the piece yet.
  • I didn't add a frog (one of my favourite animals) in this piece but the turtle got in without too much effort. 
  • I was worried that the Rudbeckia would dominate but they look fine in the photo of the whole piece.
  • I really am doing this backwards because the background should have been done first....that's what happens when you don't plan...but it's a wonderful use of my ability to adapt!
  • I really debated about using the grey thread to outline new features since I know that I'm now using colour, and I did outline with grey last night in order to be consistent. However tonight I just skipped it. I'm not sure that it makes a huge difference.
  • I'm really not sure what I want to add in the background. What do you think - would a couple of butterflies and/or a bird be enough, or should I add a shrub and plants to make it denser? I would love your opinion if you want to share it😊
Related links
Linking parties
I will be linking up to many fun linking parties. Join me to see what else is going around Quilting Blog Land and don't forget to link up to Free Motion Mavericks below! Design Wall Monday, Moving It Forward, What I Made Monday, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Midweek Maker, Let's Bee Social, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off the Wall Friday, Finished or Not Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Monday Making,

Free Motion Mavericks
I am so thrilled with your continued support of this link-up. Two weeks ago we had TEN link-ups. Yeah!!!!! I really hope that this is the beginning of a trend. The emphasis may be on FMQ but we had a few link ups with hand quilting and others made on longarm machines. If you're wondering about the difference between free motion quilting and longarm quilting, check out Leah Day's post: Quilting on a Home Machine Versus Longarm Machine. I'm happy to have all quilters join us!

The hardest part of co-hosting this blog is choosing just one project to highlight! You are all amazing quilters! Here is Vasudha of Storied Quilts who designed and free motion quilted Diamond Showers on her longarm. Wow! Here's the link to her post, in case you haven't seen it yet.
Diamond Showers


You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Free Motion Mavericks Link-up

Welcome to...
Free Motion Mavericks (Week 212)

As some of you may know, Muv of Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing has been hosting Free Motion Mavericks for a while (two hundred and eleven times in fact!). A few months ago she asked me to co-host the weekly link-up. I was thrilled and said YES! So Muv and I will be taking turns hosting this trans-Atlantic event. We're still working out the details, but I'm sure we'll figure it out 😊. So let the fun begin!

For my free motion quilting (FMQ) this week, I thought I would show you the evolution of our new buttons.

Andrée"s Button
Muv's Button
What I originally wanted was to free motion quilt the words "Free Motion Mavericks" on fabric to use as the logo. As you can see, it didn't work out that way!

I played with different fonts and printed up a few to use as examples. Many were very difficult to free motion quilt continuously.

I then chose a fabric that I thought would make an interesting but subtle background. Below you can see  my attempts at achieving contrast.
Not enough contrast
Too much contrast if your letters aren't perfect!







FMQ in contrasting thread




Finally I chose a Kona solid fabric, wrote the words using a Frixion Pen and then free motion quilted the words in dark blue. I free motioned some feather meanders around the writing. I learned these from Angela Walter's FMQ Challenge last year.





Ready for the photo shoot

I then staged the photo and used PowerPoint to add more text.




Here was the final image. Not bad but the name of the link-up just isn't prominent enough.




Finally I just added writing over the FMQ backgrounds (one of Muv's and one of mine) and Voila!
Much more effective. Oh well, I did learn a lot 😊



What I learned
  • I already knew it but it was confirmed once again. Writing using free motion quilting is not easy, especially when you want the writing to show. 
  • A little pattern on a fabric can make a huge difference in the legibility of the writing.
  • The writing on a button needs to be very visible and I'm not sure that my FMQ skills are quite up to it at this time. Thank goodness for PowerPoint 😊
Related links
Linking parties

I'll be linking this post to many fun link-ups in the hope of getting the word out about the Free Motion Mavericks Link-up. Don't be shy, spread the word! Tuesday Colour Linky PartyLinky Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, Midweek MakersSilly Mama Quilts WIPs, Needle & Thread ThursdayFinished or Not Friday,  Friday Foto FunCan I Get A Whoop Whoop?

In last week's Free Motion Maverick Link-up (Week 211), Karina linked up with her Christmas Wreath Panel. Go check it out - it's lovely!