FMQ Wild Hexies is done!

Hi! Welcome to week 431 of Free Motion Mavericks. I hope that you are doing well! I had a burst of creative energy after my Out of the Box Fibre Artists meeting this week and finished free motion quilting (FMQ) Wild Hexies. Yeah!

Adding Flowers and a Border

The first thing I did when I started to work on Wild Hexies again was to see if I had to re-do the cute cars and trucks, since that's where I was having so much trouble with my stitches. It turned out that it wasn't that bad, so I just stitched over the skipped or loose stitched and all is well. 😊

Since the fabric is so busy, there aren't many photos of the FMQ. 

Adding flowers among the animals

This is my favourite - I was able to add a small flower under the nose of the elephant so that he's watering it! 

Baby elephant watering the flower

Finally, here is the border. I used Lori Kennedy's Leaves and Circles. It needed to be something easy and forgiving. I think that I chose well.

Lori Kennedy's design of Leaves and Circles

Of course it was only after I finished that I realised that I could have used a matching colour thread. Oh well, on the whole, it looks fine 😊.

Wild Hexies - sideways!

Wild Hexies - all quilted!

Since this is my May One Monthly Goal, I'll be squaring it up, binding it and making a special label within the next week. I'm looking forward to giving it, and meeting the new owner! 

What I learned

• I'm glad that I didn't have to undo any of my stitching - although I had psyched myself up for it. It is a baby quilt, it will be greatly used and there are only a few areas where there is extra stitching. It really doesn't show!
• I was so used to stitching the whole quilt with the same thread that it never crossed my mind to change threads for the border. At least some of the FMQ is visible!

Related links

• Wild Hexies and Indecision on Free Motion Mavericks, April 27, 2023
• Cars, trucks and mixed media collage on Free Motion Mavericks, April 13, 2023
• March Finishes and April OMG, April 03, 2023
• FMQ Wild Hexies and Making Flying Geese, February 16, 2023
• Lori Kennedy: Free Motion Machine Quilting 1-2-3

Linking parties

I'll be linking up this post to many fun linking parties. Why not check them out after you link up below? Design Wall Monday, Sew & Tell, Midweek Makers, Put your foot down, 

Free Motion Mavericks

We have some budding free motion quilters joining us. I'm so thrilled! 

Donna Lee FMQ her latest appliqué project with wavy lines - it really looks great!

Donna Lee's latest appliqué project

Gail of Quilting Gail had her lovely Baby Stars quilt in the Prairie Spirit Alpacas booth at the Central Alberta Quilt Show in Red Deer. I hope that this gorgeous quilt with the FMQ swirls resulted in lots of pattern sales! 

Baby Stars quilt by Quilting Gail

Frédérique finished her Village de Provence quilt for a house themed quilt-along! To learn more about how Frédérique made and quilted Village de Provence, as well as interesting facts about the region, link up to her post!

Frédérique of Quilting Patchwork Appliqué's lovely Village de Provence

It's now your turn!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

FMQ Wild Hexies and Making Flying Geese

Hi, welcome to week 420 of Free Motion Mavericks. I have a free motion quilting (FMQ) project to share as well as the flying geese for Round 4 of the SAHRR. I'm glad that you can join me today.

FMQ Wild Hexies, a Mystery UFO

I called this a mystery UFO in my July 2021 post because when I wrote the post, I had a partially made quilt on my design wall with extra fabric in a project box, but no pattern! Since I had been inspired to make the quilt by seeing a finished version on someone's blog, I asked if any of my readers could help me. Wendy of Pieceful Wendy found the post for me - Nancy of Grace and Peace Quilting had made the quilt. I couldn't find the pattern because it was in one of my digital quilting books! Thank you Wendy and Nancy 😊

Mystery UFO is finally getting FMQ

The pattern is called Strip Lash from Stripology 2 by GE Quilt Designs. You can read about my making adventures in my previous post (see Related links).

I stitched-in-the-ditch around the hexies and then each row of hexies. Then I started FMQ the top and bottom partial hexies with some of my favourites - elongated loops (I call them cursive l's), twist (j's and l's) and then some triangle dot-to-dot patterns.

FMQ the top and bottom triangles or partial hexies

FMQ elongated loops (cursive l's), twist (j's and l's) 
and triangle dot-to-dot patterns

This is not a great picture but you can see my Swirling Stars in the top row. The next row of hexies contain a sun, clouds, and snowflakes.

FMQ the partial hexies and the first 2 rows

You can see glimpses of the sun, clouds and snowflakes in the image below.

Glimpses of the sun, clouds and
snowflakes designs

Next came a row of trees.

FMQ a row of trees

Finally some houses.

A row of houses

If these look familiar it's because I FMQ them in the Places and Communities section of my son's Version 2.0 quilt. The designs are from Lori Kennedy's book, Free Motion Machine Quilting 1-2-3.

Round 4 of SAHRR

This week we got to add flying geese to our quilt. I wasn't sure what method to use, but I was inspired by Denise of The Quiltery - For the love of geese, to make some foundation paper pieced flying geese. I checked out one of her patterns and drafted my own pattern.

Round 4 - a top row of flying geese was added

Here is a close up of the 5 flying geese that I made using my own foundation paper piecing pattern. 

Close-up of flying geese and wonky stars

You may notice that my pattern below is for 6 flying geese. Let's just say that I made every mistake possible, which included cutting my pattern while trimming. I'm very lucky that it happened on the 5th goose! I took it as a sign that 5 was plenty 😊

My foundation paper piecing pattern

Extra flying geese blocks

After I finished the top row and attached it to the quilt, I decided to see how else I could make these blocks. I vaguely remember that they weren't that difficult to make. I found a post in Simply Handmade Everyday by Kristin Esser with a tutorial on making flying geese blocks 5 ways. Her 5 ways didn't include foundation paper piecing! 

I ended up using the Oversized Stitch and Flip method since I'm accuracy challenged! They worked out very well. I now have 5 extra flying geese on the design wall and have fabric to make a few more. I'm going to see what Round 6 brings before I add them to the quilt.

What I learned

• For my FMQ, I should have spent more time practicing my Swirling Stars design. The fabric is so busy that looks fine.
• I love Lori Kennedy's pictural designs and am looking forward to making cars, pencils, apples, etc.
• I actually know who the baby quilt is going to, so I'm going to have to figure out how to quilt a teddy bear!
• I considered using the No Waste method that makes 4 flying geese blocks at a time, but those blocks all have the same middle piece. I wanted them to be different, so that method was out.
• For my SAHRR quilt, I ended up re-doing the bottom row. I had added fabric to make it fit, but I ended up not really liking what I had done. I was also surprised that the hourglasses in the bottom row really didn't show up. The fabric with the multi-coloured dots just faded away. I added two bright hourglass blocks and then re-did the corner blocks. I like it much better.
• I'm not sure if I have enough fabric to make a much larger quilt. I would rather incorporate the extra flying geese blocks into the next row if it makes sense. I guess I'll figure that out on Monday!

Related links

• Mystery UFO, July 24, 2021
• GE Quilt Designs and Stripology 2
• Strip Lash Baby Quilt by Nancy at Grace and Peace Quilting, November 13, 2020 
• Places & Communities on Free Motion Mavericks, October 20, 2022
• Lori Kennedy, Free Motion Machine Quilting 1-2-3
• How to make a Flying Geese block (5 different ways!)

Linking parties

I'll be linking up the SAHRR quilt at Anja Quilts. Let's go see how everyone is doing on their quilt! Put your foot down, Sew & Tell, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday, Finished (or Not) Friday, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Peacock Party, Patchwork & Quilts, 

Free Motion Mavericks

We've had some lovely FMQ last time! 

Chris from Chrisknitssews made this lovely Carpenter Star baby quilt. She quilted it with gentle curves and lines. What a lucky baby!

Carpenter Star baby quilt by Chris

Melva is carefully quilting a quilt for a client. It needed some work, but she's doing a great job (I peaked to a later post!)

Melva carefully quilting a quilt

Gail made a second fabulous Lone Star quilt in some beautiful Island Batik pre-cuts and dark green. She FMQ it with small arcs in the diamonds and fake feathers on the grey. 

Gail's fabulous Lone Star quilt

Frédérique of Quilting Patchwork Appliqué made a baby quilt for the neonatal care unit. She FMQ the centre diamond densely and then added light curves for a soft and smooth quilt.

A baby quilt for the neonatal care unit by Frédérique

It's now your turn 😊

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Sun flames, swirls and rail fence blocks

Hello and welcome to Week 410 of Free Motion Mavericks. I'm glad that you stopped by. I free motion quilted (FMQ) some flames and swirls to the sun in the middle of the Version 2.0 quilt.

Flames and Swirls

Last week I finished the Free Motion Mavericks post by showing you the Sun that I stitched with the walking foot in the middle blue section of the quilt. The section is not quite finished but I did add flames extending between the sun's points and then swirls in the middle of the sun.

This first picture isn't as pretty but does show the FMQ well. Between each point in the sun is a flame. I was very nervous about stitching in such a large area so I drew a few flames on the paper template that I had created. It only took a few to figure out that I wanted the flame to start outside of where the Sun's points intersected.

Sun with flames and swirls

After finishing the flames, I FMQ just inside the circle of the sun. It was much more wobbly than the original Sun stitched with the walking foot but I just wanted to highlight the circle. I then started stitching the swirls. That went fairly well since each swirl wasn't that large. The design also allowed me to stop often to get my barring. 

Another look at the Sun, the flames and the swirls

When I finished the FMQ, I started cleaning up the threads in the back. I discovered that when I had used the walking foot and had jumped to the next flame, the stitching was starting to come undone😲. I thought that I had added a few stitches in place but obviously not enough. The easiest thing to do was to FMQ over the original circle and take a detour over the small triangles where the sun's points intersected. This helped to highlight the Sun's circle as well as stitch over those threads that would have undone.😊

Making Rail Fence Blocks

This week I also made rail fence blocks for Cynthia's (Cynthia Brunz Designs) charity quilts . At the end of November, she asked if quilters could send her some dark blue and brown or tan rail fence blocks. You know how I'm accuracy challenged, so I thought that making blocks would be easier than making a whole quilt.  

I might have been mistaken in my assumptions 😊! Getting those rail fence blocks to finish at 5½" x 5½" took a lot of hard work but was probably a very good exercise for me. Of the 14 blocks that I made, 12 are good enough to send to Cynthia. Two were a whole ½" smaller, so I kept those and made two mug rugs. I did learn a lot and I'm including that below. 

First mug rug

Second mug rug

Two lovely mug rugs

I quilted them differently, with the walking foot, to see the effect. The top mug rug was stitched more or less in-the-ditch, while the mug rug below was stitched perpendicular to the piecing. It really gives a different effect. 

What I learned

• Drawing the sun flames on the large paper template was a great idea. It helped me understand the scale of the flames and figure out where to start and finish them relative to the points.
• I used a Frixion pen to draw the first flame on the quilt. After that I was confident that I could do it without the marking.
• I was a bit upset when I saw that the thread at the beginning of the Sun's points were unravelling. I just ignored it while I finished up the swirls and then realised that FMQ over them would solve the problem. That is what I do when I come to the end of my bobbin thread. I just stitch over a part that is already stitched and then keep going - so that's essentially what I did. I checked the back of the quilt, and it's going to be fine 😊.
• As for the rail fence blocks, I was very careful in the sewing and pressing of the blocks, so the problem has to be in the initial cutting of the fabric. 
• I did as Cynthia suggested and made the block length longer so that I could trim them, but my problem was with the width. After trimming a couple of blocks, that's when I realised that I had a potential problem. From then on, I was very accurate in my sewing. I'm really happy that only two blocks didn't make it.

Related links

• Lori Kennedy, Sunshine variations
• Lori Kennedy, Free Motion Machine Quilting 1-2-3
• Oh Scrap! Something to keep me Busy, Nov 27, 2022

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun link ups. You may want to check them out...after you have linked your blog below :-) Needle & Thread Thursday, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Put your foot down, Peacock Party, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Oh Scrap!, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2022.  

Free Motion Mavericks

We are starting to have a real party with FMQ and other posts. Remember, you don't have to do FMQ to link up! 

Karen made a lovely personalized ballerina quilt for her granddaughter Livia. She did some lovely FMQ flower swirls. It's really lovely.

Karen's lovely quilt for Livia, her granddaughter 

Melva finished her Pieces in the Garden Row Quilt by FMQ 5" clam shells. The quilt is based on the story of a "Bride's Quilt" and was her November OMG. Find out the significance of the various blocks by visiting her post. It's really lovely in front of the small chapel/shed. 

Melva's Pieces in the Garden Row Quilt

Rebecca is wowing us all with her mixture of digital quilting, FMQ and ruler work on her Jingle quilt. Here is the border that she is FMQ. Amazingly enough, it turns out that FMQ is faster than both the ruler work and the individual digital quilting!

The borders are FMQ on Rebecca's Jingle quilt

We also got to check out Raewyn's finished big Boxer floor cushion cover. The kids are going to love playing with this cushion! 

What a great big Boxer floor cushion cover!

It's now your turn 😎

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Places & Communities on Free Motion Mavericks

Hi and welcome to week 403 of Free Motion Mavericks. I hope that you are all well. Tonight I free motion quilted (FMQ) a large area of the Version 2.0 quilt using Lori Kennedy's book and website. It was a lot of fun.😊

FMQ Places

Tuesday night before falling asleep, I was thinking of the FMQ that needed to be done on Wednesday. I knew that it needed to be fairly simple. I got inspired (I love it when that happens!) I decided to FMQ all of the places that Stéphane has lived or that are special to him. Here is the list: Timmins, Kirkland Lake, Sudbury, North Bay, Crystal Falls, Ottawa, Orléans, Matachewan, Cornwall and Barrie. These are mostly in Northern and Eastern Ontario. I also added Ontario and Canada.

Part of the Places and Communities section of the quilt
(click to see larger image)

For reference, here is the outlined section on the quilt that I completed.

Outlined in white is the Places and Communities section

As you can glimpse from the first image, the space is surrounded by place names. I then made the sun and an airplane. The only template that I made was for the sun since I have trouble getting that right. I just used a white chalk pencil to outline it. All of the ideas for the images come from Lori Kennedy and were adapted as needed. See the links in Related links below.

Place names, the sun and an airplane

Once I drew out the images, I was ready to FMQ them. As you can see, the sun is the one that I had the most trouble with.

Drawing out the images

I then worked on the bottom section adding what is essentially a cabin in the woods. Then came the line of cars and trucks and finally a neighbourhood with homes and trees.

Cabin in the woods, cars and a neighbourhood

You can see the FMQ better on the back, except that the places are backwards 😊

A better view of the FMQ from the back

Another image from the back

What I learned

• It was so much fun finding the designs to include in this area. After deciding on the places, it came to me that I could FMQ things about community.
• Lori Kennedy has some great posts for all of these. I did start with her book (see Related links below).
• The angles of the triangles always mess me up when I try to do the sun. I'll have to practice that (a lot!) to get comfortable FMQ it.
• I can't wait to show you a picture of the whole quilt in progress. It will have to be next time - my helper is in bed with Covid 😦. So far I've managed to avoid it. 🤞 
• Breaking News: Only one week before my retirement😁 I can't wait to be on permanent play mode!!!😎

Related links

• Last Version 2.0 post
• Birds on Free Motion Mavericks, October 6, 2022
• Lori Kennedy, Free Motion Machine Quilting 1-2-3
• Links to some of the designs on Lori Kennedy's website:
• Airplane motif
• Cabin in the Woods
• Zippy car
• Sunshine variations

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. Please remember to link up below. Design Mall Monday. Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, Peacock Party, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Put Your Foot Down, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2022, 

I linked up this post on Cheryl's Favourite Finish Monthly link up. 

This is also my OMG for October - I'm thrilled that I kept quilting. I'll be linking up to the November OMG to get this baby finished!

Free Motion Mavericks

I hope that you will have something to post below. Here is my last Version 2.0 post with birds.

Bird on a branch

It's your turn!

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Orbiting planets and funky stars on Free Motion Mavericks

I had a really fun time last evening doing some free motion quilting (FMQ) for this post. I can't wait to show you what I've been up to 😊 

Adding planets and then funky stars

I started by doing some research using my trusty National Geographic "The New Universe, Here, Now, and Beyond". It was published in 2010 and you would think that the information would be up-to-date, but it turns out that a LOT has happened in astronomy in the last 12 years. However it was perfect for my purposes - pretty pictures, good descriptions and a map of our solar system. 

Here is my quilted universe to date. I'm really sorry that the pictures aren't more vivid but it was a dark cloudy day.

Our Universe....so far

An asteroid, Neptune, and a Swirling Star

Mercury, the Sun, a faint
Flaming Sun, Venus,
Uranus and a Swirling Star

A Flaming Star and a Swirling Sphere

I also took the time to look through the many FMQ e-books that I own. These were really great resources. When I found a star or something that could possibly be found in the Universe, I snipped a picture of it to put into my project folder so that everything is easily accessible. I also wrote the names of the design, the book it came from and the page number on a sheet so that I could easily find them again. See, working in information management for the last 9 years has paid off! 😊 

The list of the funky stars I used so far are in Related links below. At the end of the project I will make a montage of the designs I used to help anyone interested in finding these.

Here is the labelled image of the "real" planets. You can click on the picture to make it larger.

Finally here is a close-up of a Flaming Sun.

Close-up of Flaming Sun

One Monthly Goal (OMG)

I will be linking up this project to Elm Street Quilts' OMG for April. It's time that this baby gets finished!

What I learned

• Finding the FMQ designs of stars and other things that might be found in the Universe was really easy with the ebooks. This was definitely an advantage to ebooks. 
• I practiced drawing the designs for a couple of days. I managed to reproduce a few very well while others still need work - but that's what practice is all about! My Swirling Star was getting better the second time around.
• Most of the FMQ designs were for a series or an all-over design. I adapted these for this project. I really loved FMQ Sheila Sinclair Snyder's Flaming Star (she called them Spurs but that didn't go with my Universe!) 
•  It was a lot of fun using variegated thread for the funky stars. I wanted them to be different from the "real" planets on the quilt.
• So far, the plan is to keep adding stars, nebula etc. to the quilt and then to use some white Bottom Line thread to add smaller meandering stars between the larger planets and stars. It's possible that the FMQ of this quilt will be done by the end of April. I would like that - I think that it's time to get to my son's quilt!!!😯

Related links

• National Geographic "The New Universe, Here, Now, and Beyond", 2010
• Leah Day, Quilting Design Gallery
• Flaming Sun (Day 310)
• Swirling Sphere (Day 287)
• Lori Kennedy: Free Motion Machine Quilting 1-2-3
• Swirling Stars
• Sheila Sinclair Snyder: Get Addicted to Free Motion Quilting
• Adapted the Spurs design for borders (I called it a Flaming Star in the image above)

Linking parties

I will be linking up to many linking parties this week. I hope that you will check them out. Remember to also link up your projects below! One Monthly Goal, Monday Making, Put Your Foot Down, Finished or Not Finished, Off the Wall Fridays, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Peacock Party, Patchwork & Quilts, Let's Make Baby Quilts, 

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks Week 325. Thank you for linking up last time. If you didn't get a chance to see Quilting Gail's t-shirt quilt, you really have to visit. I think that she had fun playing with different FMQ designs!  

Gail of Quilting Gail's FMQ of a t-shirt quilt

It's your turn!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

I Heart Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks (Week 216) link-up. As a tribute to Valentine's day, I have a  💗 themed project and some Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) designs.

Planting Seeds Mini

Planting Seeds is a foundation paper pieced pattern that came into my inbox from Stephanie of Patch + Dot. Since I knew that I would be hosting Free Motion Mavericks on Valentine`s day,  it seemed like the perfect opportunity to make something quick to FMQ.

Planting Seeds top

Foundation paper pieced

Both halves of the heart

The fabric for the background is not typical but I think it works.

Some FMQ hearts inside the heart

Planted Seeds Mini - pattern by Patch + Dot

Free Motion Mavericks and FMQ Heart Designs
This week I went through the book, FMQ 180 Doodle Quilting Designs that was compiled by Karen M. Burns. The pattern that I played with was Spiral Heart designed by Lori Kennedy.

Here are some of my doodles. The hardest part was making the designs connect.














Here are some of the results.

This is a variation of Spiral Heart but with an echoed heart in the middle.

Spiral Heart with echoed hearts

More Spiral Hearts and LOVE right from the 70's

Hearts are one of the shapes that I can draw fairly well. These are clusters of them. They tend to be easier to link together.

Clusters of hearts

 This is my favourite heart cluster with a couple of curls

Heart cluster with curls

 Another Spiral Heart with an echoed heart and to the left, a heart flower.

Spiral Heart and a small heart flower

What I learned

• As I mentioned, the hardest part was making the designs connect. The second hardest part was getting both sides of the spiral to match!
• I really should have chosen thread that didn't quite match so well. The truth is that I'm a chicken....I don't want all of my mistakes to be too noticeable. 
• However, when I ran out of the matching thread, I used a light gray thread that was a little more visible. I'll keep working on my courage - maybe a thread that is just a little too dark to match?
• To the right is an image of Patch + Dot's pattern since her mini is so different from mine 😊 
• As I was sewing on the binding, I remembered that I could have used my extended-border binding technique. It would have been perfect for this situation, but of course, I would have had to plan it!

Related links

• Patch + Dot's Free PDF Quilts Patterns page
• FMQ 180 Doodle Quilting Designs, compiled by Karen M. Burns
• Extended-border binding technique in the post: 
• A loon, a bear and a binding tutorial, November 25, 2018

Linking parties

I will be linking this post to several parties. Let's see what's going on!
Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Midweek Makers, Linky Tuesday, Design Wall Monday, Moving it Forward, What I Made Monday, Silly Mama Quilts WIPs, TGIFF, Needle & Thread Thursday, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Friday Foto Fun, Finished or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Monday Making, Oh Scrap!, 

A big thank you to Muv for linking up her River Thames lap quilt. It's really lovely. You can see her finished quilt here. I just love her coffee mug background (even if they drink tea, but it could be for hot chocolate or even better, a hot toddy!

Thames River lap quilt - quilted by Muv

Inlinkz Link Party