Introducing my Exit Strategy

In the spirit of anticipation, celebration and learning, I am starting a new project.

EXIT STRATEGY →

In less than 3 years and 2 months, I will be 60! People are generally not eager to grow older, but I believe that the perks of age and wisdom more than make up for the laugh lines and grey hair (which I've had for over 15 years anyway!)

60 will begin the next phase of my life - Fibre Artist!

So, how am I going to get ready for the fibre artist phase of my life without living in the future? Well, pretty much the same way that I've approached most things.

• Learn
• Have a flexible plan
• Keep expectations low and gratitude high

I hope that you'll join me on my journey. Let me tell you about my very flexible plan.

Amy's Creative Side

It started with the blocks that I made while participating in the One Week Improv Challenge with Amy Ellis of Amy's Creative Side. The challenge was by subscribed email and through Instagram at  #improvwithamy.

As with most challenges, I followed at my own speed. I did manage to make the first five days of seven days (see the post in Related links). At some point after the challenge, I made a few more blocks. 

Block 1 - joining strips

Block 3 - playing with triangles

Of course, the next decision is....what to do with those blocks?

The first time I thought about Exit Strategy

A few months later, in late spring, I felt especially tired and needed something besides rest to help me stay positive. What's better than a new plan, a new project to help my spirit soar with anticipation, celebration and learning? 

The name, Exit Strategy, came very quickly but the rest took me a while to figure out. It's so easy to get caught up with grandiose plans but more than anything, I want this to be realistic and doable.

These are the notebooks that I keep with me to jot down ideas. The idea for Exit Strategy was slowly percolating.

3 notebooks that I keep around

The next step of this plan came about when I bought a gently used version of the book, Exploring Textile Arts in June at Quilt Canada. The book was published in 2002 by the Editors of Creative Publishing. There is a more recent version, but this one is fine for my purposes.

I've been very inspired by some of the techniques in the book. That's when the rest of the flexible plan started falling into place.

 The flexible plan

• Try out new techniques
• Use the improv blocks as background
• Blog and reflect on what I've learned
• Repeat
• Time frame: very flexible....3 years and 2 months 😊

Using 8 inch blocks as background makes these projects less intimidating. It's about learning, playing, taking chances and trying new things. I'm hoping that I'll be able to put some of the blocks together as they are completed....or not. That's also part of the very flexible plan.

You may have seen the first block that I posted about, without specifically saying what Exit Strategy was. If you didn't see it, the post is below in Related links.

A Felting Miss-Adventure,
part of the Exit Strategy project

I've been hard at work practicing my embroidery stitches and learning new techniques. Here is a sneak preview of my design wall. I will be posting about these techniques in the next few weeks.

A sneak peek at my design wall - things are progressing

I created a page for Exit Strategy, and as I progress, I'll add links to the related posts. I hope that you'll follow me in my journey.

What I learned

• I've been thinking about this for a very long time, ever since I discovered what I wanted to be when I grow up 😊
• I used to say that I wanted to be a full time artist when I retired, but then I thought about it....I'm going to be retired. This should be fun, not just another job! So now I'm keeping the full time out of the description. I'm hoping to play full time but as far as art making goes, I'll do what I want, when I want, and then, if I feel like it, I'll find opportunities to show my work and accept the deadlines that go with them.

Related links

• Improv Challenge, February 10, 2019
• Exploring Textile Arts, Editors of Creative Publishing
• A Felting Miss-Adventure, August 25, 2019
• Exit Strategy project page

Linking parties
I'll be linking up to many great linky parties. Let's go see what's happening in blog land! I'm linking up with Muv at Free Motion Mavericks, Slow Sunday Stitching, Oh Scrap!, Off The Wall Friday, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, Moving It Forward, What I Made Monday, Midweek Makers, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Peacock Party, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Put Your Foot Down,

A felting miss-adventure

Welcome - yes, I did have a felting miss-adventure last week but wasn't going to post about it until I had done something positive with part of my felted piece. I'm quick to admit to mistakes learning moments but I love happy endings 😉

Festival de la fibre TWIST

Festival de la fibre TWIST
They always have the best postcards!

It all started when I attended the TWIST fibre festival last Friday with a fellow fibre artist. The yearly festival occurs in Saint-André-Havellin in Quebec, about an hour away from Ottawa. I had wanted to attend for years now and was thrilled to go with someone who could take me along.

It was a beautiful day and there were both artists and vendors - of pretty much anything fibre. I bought some beautiful roving, a little bit of yarn and a few fat quarters. It was very busy but manageable. I even met a couple of fellow Quilt Guild members. It was a great day.

In the afternoon, we attended a demonstration of a Felted ruffle collar by Anna Mathis of Ploome Fibre Arts. In 45 minutes, Anna completed a beautiful felted collar with ruffles. She was really interesting, full of energy and made it sound so simple!

Angora fibres all in place

Anna working hard to felt it

Pulling the felted collar to make the ruffles

Trying out the felted ruffled collar

Felting miss-adventure

Can you tell where this story is going?

The angora ready to be felted

On Monday I decided that I wanted to try out some wet felting. Anna had made it sound so easy!

I should have started with a smaller project but I couldn't help myself. I wanted a felted ruffled collar, even if I couldn't wear it (I'm allergic to wool).

It started off well. I had bought some angora roving so I used a light pink for the base and a darker pink on top.

Starting to felt. Slowly massaging and then
getting more vigorous. 

This picture was taken before I got discouraged. After two hours of felting, I had to put things away to go to a meeting. The next morning I was at it again.


The results looks like something pink that the cat coughed up. I'm not being modest - it was scary!

I put it aside and worked on some of my other quilting projects. But I really wanted to create a piece with this mess, so that I had something to show for all of my trouble.

Here it is!

The finished block - the first square of my Exit Strategy piece.

I cut a strip from the felted piece and cut that down to one side (the purple strip was in the middle), and then I:

• Needle felted on top of the scraggly felting. I used both the darker pink and the lighter pink.
• Added some curly sheep bits to the edges.
• Lined the purple strips with some yarn.
• Beaded some amethyst and pink rose quartz along the purple strips.
• Added more beads and then the Lotus Flower button.

I've attached the felted piece to the improvisational batik block that I made while doing the One Week Improv Challenge with Amy Ellis #improvwithamy. I continued making improv squares without knowing what would come of it. I'm now working on a project with these blocks, and this is my first one. I'll explain in another post.

What I learned

• Someone said that experience is what you get, when you didn't get what you wanted (I had the posted in my room - always the cynical one). I got plenty of experience on this project....but I did end up making something, and learning, from my experience 😊
• I believe that my mistake was not using enough angora roving. It just wasn't dense enough to felt, except in the middle.
• In hindsight, I can't believe that I embarked on this miss-adventure. It's one thing for an expert to make something in a demo, but entirely something else to expect the same results the first time around.
• I paid dearly for my experience. Today, six days later, I can almost walk normally. She wasn't kidding when she said to bend your knees! Since I'm on holidays, I used the time to rest and stretch, a lot!
• I am really happy with my finished piece. It's a miss-adventure that ends well (and I have another two feet of the mess to play with!)

Related links

• Festival de la fibre TWIST
• Anna Mathis of Ploome Fibre Arts
• Improv Challenge, February 10, 2019
• Amy's Creative Side with Amy Ellis  

Linking parties
This is definitely a squirrel project, so I'll be linking up to DrEAMi! with MMM! quilts as soon as it opens as well as some great linky parties. Let's go see what others are up to! Slow Sunday Stitching,
Free Motion Mavericks with Muv, New to Me 2019, Monday Making, Moving It Forward, What I Made Monday, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Finished or Not Friday,

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Fall 2018

Welcome to the Blogger's Quilt Festival - Fall 2018 hosted by Amy Ellis of Amy's Creative Side.

Connections & Intersections

I've been working on this art quilt for months now, mostly a little bit at a time, until the deadline started looming over me! As much as I dislike that 8 letter word, it does help with motivation. 😊

If you read previous posts, you'll notice that I called it the "Connected by a thread" project, which was the theme for our fibre art pieces. This art quilt was created for the Out of the Box fiber art group's exhibition next summer. When I finished the piece and had attached a label without the title, it came to me - Connections and Intersections. Since the piece is abstract, you can decide for yourself what the title means! 😊😊😊

Connections and Intersections art quilt

I want to tell you a little about how I made this, why it ended up looking the way it does and what I learned.

I'll start at the beginning. When I want to create a piece to fit a theme, I almost never have a problem coming up with ideas. The issue is usually working through the ideas to see if I can pull them off in whatever time frame I have. My first ideas tend to be a little too complicated and at this time in my life, I just don't have a year to spend on one piece.

After discarding a couple of complex and more literal ideas, I decided on a few criteria:

• Use my own hand-dyed fabrics;
• Make it an abstract piece;
• Try a few fun techniques;
• Use my knowledge of design theory to put it all together in a cohesive piece.

The background

After picking out hand-dyed fabrics that worked well together, I sewed a few pieces together using improv piecing. Some of it worked and some of it didn't, but I knew that I would use them somewhere, eventually.

The bottom ruffle piece came about when I was trying to sew some of these improv pieces together using curves. In this instance, I overdid the curve, which came out like the sleeve of a garment - the ultimate curve! I decided to keep it and added some fabric underneath. That's how the piece became 3-D.

I finished the 3-D edge with a machine zigzag stitch and then attached little strips of cheesecloth on both sides of the edge. Over this I needle-felted some lovely brown, beige and green wool roving.

The layered circle on the right was created to try out some of Sue Spargo's embroidery techniques (see my first post in Related links below). It was made as a background for some beading.

Here's a picture of the finished 3-D part of the piece which reminds me of a cave. I added the little purple-grey piece that was beautifully frayed and then later embroidered the inside. Doesn't it look like a cozy place to hide out?

The finished "cave"

Woven fabric finished

I then added the woven piece. You can read more about this in my previous post (see Related links).

Woven fabric in progress

Later on, I embroidered along some of the lines to cut up the woven piece since my daughter said that it looked like an amoeba. Hopefully the final version looks less amoeba-like, although I guess there's nothing wrong with amoebas.

The bottom part of the piece

The first extensive stitching was done over the cave. I found some really beautiful variegated embroidery threads and played with straight-ish lines and circles to change it up.

Next I used some lovely wool that I corded on the side and above the cave.

I used a lovely navy wool thread that shows up well for the seed stitches on the purple fabric next to the cave.

Next came the improv beading to top the circles. I've heard of improv beading and seen some beautiful work by members of the Out of the Box group, but I had never done any. So through Google, I found Robin Atkins's blog - Beadlust, and a free downloadable copy of her first book, Exploring Creativity with Beads! This is the result of my first improv beading.

Improvisational beading

You can see also that I added a braided bracelet to accentuate the curving fabric changes. The bracelet was made by either my daughter or my niece. I've been wanting to create art pieces with these bracelets for a long time. I hope that this is the first of many!

Details of the woven pieces and the triangles

I used up the rest of the woven pieces by covering parts of them with felt and then adding an extra strip of needle felting from the cave between them. I finished the strip with French knots.

I also started adding wool felted triangles. I used different embroidery stitches to attach them and then embroidered around them.

Eventually I decided to just embroider triangles to add texture instead of adding more wool felt.

From the beginning I wanted to add the driftwood to this piece. The hard part was deciding where it should go. You can read more about this in "What I learned". It finally made it next to the beads, under the bracelet.

Details of the bracelet, improv beading and driftwood talisman

The idea of creating the driftwood talisman came together when I saw the cover of  Quilting Arts Magazine (Issue 91). Victoria Gertenbach, the author of the article, had rocks, bones and shells embellished with embroidery and beads. I wanted to keep the driftwood simple but I added some fabric that I had used in the woven piece and beaded it using some amethysts pieces from one of my mother's necklaces. I added a feather charm for a simple dangling effect. You can also see more amethyst beads to the right of the circle.

Finally I finished the top of the piece with simple embroidered swirls in variegated thread.

Embroidered swirls

The quilt label is part of the improv piecing that didn't make it into the quilt.

Connections & Intersections' improv label

What I learned

• After finishing Connections and Intersections, I was so wiped out that I have barely done anything since except read and sleep. Today I'm finally starting to feel like myself and started reading the many, many blog posts in my inbox. That's when I realised that the Bloggers Quilt Festival is on. Honestly that's how I learn about most of these events - by people who are participating. So thank you all for keeping me in the loop, when I finally get around to reading the blog posts I receive!
• I almost always ask my kids for feedback on my work. It was so funny to get my son's feedback on this: "I don't know...what's it supposed to be?" I guess he's not the abstract art type! However, my daughter helped me a lot with the design process. Thanks!
• As is becoming my habit, I used many photos of this ongoing piece to determine what would come next. This piece was very much an intuitive creation. Since it was abstract, there was no right or wrong, just my intuition, the design principles that I tried to apply and the many photocopies of the ongoing piece with marks and notes.
• As I mentioned above, I knew that I wanted the driftwood on the piece but didn't make up my mind until almost the end as to where it would be. I thought that I wanted it at the top, but in the end, it would have made the piece too top heavy, so down it went.
• I'm really grateful that this piece end up as well as it did because I have to admit that by the last weekend before it was due, I was so exhausted that I had a hard time with everything. It's probably a good thing in hindsight because it made me keep the driftwood and the embroidery on the top of the piece very, very simple - which is exactly what it needed 😊

Related links

• Bloggers Quilt Festival hosted by Amy Ellis of Amy's Creative Side
• Connections & Intersections posts:
• Another OMG Art Quilt, September 7, 2018



Bloggers Quilt Festival





• June Beginnings, June 5, 2018
• Sue Spargo's Craftsy class, Embroidery Texture & Dimension by Hand.
• Robin Atkins's blog - Beadlust
• Quilting Arts Magazine (Issue 91) Objects of comfort by Victoria Gertenbach

Linking parties

I will be linking up to the Bloggers Quilt Festival, the September One Monthly Goal (OMG) Finish Link-up post as well as many other cool linking parties. TGIFF!, Slow Sunday Stitching, Off the Wall Friday, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Finish it up Friday!, Friday Foto Fun, Finished or Not Friday, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Design Wall Monday, What I made Monday, Linky Tuesday, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers, Free Motion Mavericks, 

Project details

Connections & Intersections

14" X 17"

Materials: hand-dyed cottons, wool felt and thread, cotton and silk thread, drift wood, beads and charm 

Techniques: dry felting, embroidery, couching, weaving, hand quilting

June Beginnings

My life is overflowing with quilting, embroider, EPP and other fibre art projects. I love it, especially since there are no real deadlines. Here are some of the things I've been working on this week.

Connected by a Thread Art Quilt

The Out of the Box FibreArtist group has a challenge so that we can eventually create a body of art for an exhibition. It's really weird working on a piece for eventually. It's also really nice since I get to explore without a deadline.

Trying out some stitches on felt

The theme is Connected by a Thread and the size is 11" x 14". I had many ideas for this project, each one more complex than the last. I finally put a stop to all of that and decided to create an abstract piece (something I very rarely do) with my hand-dyed fabrics from last summer. I'll be incorporating a whole bunch of techniques that I'm presently learning 😊 It's going to be organic and improvisational (i.e. winging it!)

I'm only going to show you elements of it since it's got a long way to go. Eventually the task will be to make sure that it's cohesive.

The first image is a layered circle. I started with a circle of hand-dyed fabric cut with pinking shears. I layered the circle and embroidering it following some of Sue Spargo's techniques from her Craftsy class, Embroidery Texture & Dimension by Hand.

The layer on top of the fabric is green pre-felted wool, attached with a whip stitch. This layer is surrounded by Pekinese stitches in 2 shades of green embroidery floss. The next layer, a pink-beige pre-felted wool, is crowned with couched purple sheep curls. I haven't figured out what will go with the next purple felted circle.

Needle felted edge

I have a 3-D edge that needed to be finished. Over the zigzag stitch I attached little strips of cheesecloth on both sides of the edge. Over this I needle felted some lovely wool roving.

In this area, I cut some of the dyed fabric into strips and wove it together into a block. I didn't want to add the whole block so I backed it with fusible web, cut it into this shape and then stitched it to the background. Eventually I will be stitching around it.

Woven strips of hand-dyed fabric

I also practiced some of the stitches I learned on this piece of felt. There are fly stitches, tête de boeuf, closed fly stitches, more Pekinese stitches and attempts at a few crested chains.

Some practice stitching from Sue Spargo's class

Kingfisher Stitch-Along

The stitch along has started. I thought I had a few EPP flowers already made but my hexies had two rows while the pattern calls for only one row of hexies around the middle hexie. I'm not complaining since in the end it will be that much easier and faster to make.

These are potential flowers from my pile of already made hexies. The next step is to go into the stash and get different fabric, since these are the ones that I've been working with for the last year. Time for some new stuff! As you can guess, I haven't decided what to do about the middle hexie. I would like it to be roughly the same fabric or colour to unify the quilt.

Potential EPP flowers

I really like the look of low volume fabrics as a background to these colourful flowers. I'm not sure that I have much of that in my stash. I may have to check out some of my favourite shops! Oh shucks 😊

More colours for potential EPP flowers

This project will be my One Monthly Goal (OMG) for June. We are supposed to make 8 flowers per week. I'm not sure that's very realistic for me, so I'm aiming for 16 flowers by the end of June.

What I learned

• I'm not really sure where I'm going with this art piece but ultimately what I would like is to make a cohesive piece that includes all kinds of different techniques that I'm learning.
• I started with some improv piecing, didn't like parts of it so I just took the rotary cutter to it!
• I have a few ideas but what I'm trying to figure out is when to quilt it. Since I want to add some found objects and do some beading, the quilting should probably be done before this.
• I am loving the creative process and really trying to let myself be ok with not knowing how it's going to turn out. I'm just doing a minimum of planning as I go. I've been known to do this but it doesn't always work out. This time, it will!
• I've only been on Instagram for a few months. I haven't really been hooked until I started looking at hexies through #kingfisherstitchalong. I have no idea why, but I love looking at the different combinations of fabric on participants' hexies. It makes my heart sing.😊
• I'm glad that the EPP project involves lots of colour because my art quilt isn't as colourful as I would like.

Related links

• Out of the Box Fibre Artists
• Sue Spargo: Embroidery Texture & Dimension by Hand on Craftsy
• Kingfisher Stitch-Along

Linking parties
I'll be linking this post to OMG Goal Setting for June as well as many others. Let's find out what everyone is up to! Main Crush Monday, Monday Making, Design Wall Tuesday, Moving it Forward Monday, Midweek Maker, Linky Tuesday, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Needle & Thread Thursday, Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers, Off the Wall Friday,

Islas Canarias finished

It's done! This is my travel art quilt of the Canary Islands.

Islas Canarias Art Quilt

I started this project on a cruise to the Canary Islands and other destinations in Spain.

I didn't expect it, but the Islas Canarias stole my heart. 😊 As I mentioned in my last post, the islands are now on my bucket list of places to visit (for at least a few weeks!)

I've had a great time finishing this baby. All of the embroidery represent places on three of the Islas Canarias: Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Lanzarote. As you'll see, each island is very different.

Gran Canaria

Playa de las Canteras, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

We walked around Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, from the port to the Playa de las Canteras. This is a 3 kilometer beach with a lovely promenade, hotels, stores and cafés. We stopped in a restaurant for café con leche while a quick storm passed through and ended up staying for an amazing homemade pizza.

This is an embroidery of the promenade and the slightly stormy Atlantic Ocean. I also included a palm tree, although the water behind it is calmer.

I added some poinsettias since they were found growing in many parks. I don't think I've ever seen them grow in a garden, especially in January!

Palm tree and calm water

Poinsettia flowers on Las Palmas de Gran Caneria

Parque Nacionale del Teide

Tenerife

Our second stop on the islands was Tenerife. There is so much to see and do, but on this trip, I decided to focus on the natural aspects of the islands. Our tour was to the Parque Nacionale del Teide.

On the way to the park, we drove through the Corona Forestal, a protected forest of Canarian Pines that are endemic to Tenerife. The trees can survive forest fires and volcano eruptions through their fireproof bark. After such a fire, the tree trunk will continue to grow after a few years.

You can read about the red bugloss plant in my previous post (see Related Links).

Canarian pine on Tenerife

Red bugloss plant in winter

Lanzarote

Lanzarote has a radical landscape because of the volcano eruptions that lasted six years from 1730 to 1736, and then a smaller one in 1824. It's really amazing to see the destructive force of a volcano, as well as the perseverance of the inhabitants of the island. They have adapted and have succeeded in working in this new environment.

El Diablo de Timanfaya

As part of the tour of the Parque Nacionale de Timanfaya, the guide takes you around three stations that highlight the geothermal energy of the dormant volcano. The fire in the quilt depicts one of the stations where straw burns brightly from the underground heat.

The image next to the fire is based on the metal sculpture known as El Diablo de Timanfaya. This scupture was designed by the great Lanzarote artist César Manrique.

César Manrique had a huge influence on his home island. The white buildings that are traditional to the island, are also a part of the government's policies to preserve the original look of the island. On my next visit, I will spend much more time seeing Manrique's creations.

The last two images below illustrate the wine industy of Lanzarote and the lichen covered lava rocks.

Before the devastating volcano eruptions, Lanzarote had a lot of agriculture, including wine production. After the eruptions, it was discovered that the soil underneath the volcano ash was still good for agriculture and that the volcano ash acted as insulation to keep water in the soil.

Because of the wind conditions on the island, they started sheltering their vines in man-made depressions that are partially protected by rocks. In our tour, we visited La Geria winery that makes lovely sweet wine.

I chose to depict lichen on the lava rock because it is the first thing that grows after a volcano eruption. The lava rock that I used comes from a necklace that I purchased. I created lichen to cover it by placing a couple of pieces of wool fibre between 2 small pieces of Sulky Solvy water soluble stabilizer, and then FMQ it with various colours of silk thread.

Wine growing in Lanzarote and lichen covered lava rock

To finish it off, I decided to write the name of the islands (in Spanish) at the top of the quilt. As much as I like the black fabric with yellow polka dots, it needed a little something to liven it up. The letters are cut from fabrics that I had brought on the trip and were then raw-edge appliquéd. I used some of the green olivine gemstones (peridot) found on Lanzarote to add the dot to the "i".

I moved the sun to the top left corner of the piece and then added a little needle felting underneath to separate it from the letters and add a little whimsy. While I was at it, I felted some of the same wool fibers inside the embroidery of the fire.

Top half of the Islas Canarias art quilt

What I learned

Bottom half of the quilt

• I had an awesome time making this art quilt. It was fun to decide what to put on it to depict the islands and then to figure out how to do it. I used my notes, some of our pictures, the internet, as well as the many postcards that I bought for inspiration.
• It's the first time that I used the Solvy Sulky water soluble stabilizer. I've been wanting to make something like this for ages. It was super easy and fast to make. I'll be using this technique again!
• All of the fabrics, except for the backing and the binding, came with me on the trip. I did have to dig into my scrap bags for more polka dot fabric for the binding. 
• Since I had a finished edge on the top and bottom of the quilt, I decided to create a separate backing and batting piece that is attached to the quilt top through the quilting. I've done this before on my Woven Landscape (see Related Links). 
• I measured the back of the quilt top, then cut the batting to roughly that size and a backing that was a couple of inches larger on all sides.
• I then wrapped the backing around the batting edges and sewed around it. I did have to cut and re-stitch one of the sides to adjust the backing/batting piece. 
• When the backing was the right size and didn't show from the front of the quilt, I pinned the backing to the front and FMQ around the blocks, appliqué and embroidery. Finally, I FMQ over the binding to ensure that everything would stay together.

Related Links

• Previous post, including the red bugloss plant: Inspiration and Slow Work, January 22, 2018
• Parque Nacionale del Teide
• Corona Forestal and the Canarian Pine 
• Timanfaya National Park information
• César Manrique, Lanzarote artist, architect and designer
• The Strange Volcanic Vineyards of Lanzarote
• Sulky Solvy water soluble stabilizer
• Woven Landscape Finished, March 21, 2016

Project Details

Islas Canrias art quilt

Islas Canarias 

11" x 12"

Materials: cotton, wool roving, lava rock, peridot, wool fibre, cotton and silk thread, Sulky Solvy water soluble stabilizer, embroidery floss

Techniques: hand piecing, appliqué, needle felting, embroidery (stem stitch, running stitch, Pekinese stitch) free motion quilting

Linking Parties: I have linked up to the following linky parties. Let's see what our quilting friends are up to! Free Motion Mavericks, Slow Sunday Stitching, Oh Scrap!, Off the Wall Friday, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Design Wall Monday, Quilter's Monday, Linky Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Let's Bee Social, Needle and Thread Thursday, MOP Monday,