FMQ Madness!

I once blogged that there might be such as thing as too much of a good thing - that is, free-motion quilting (FMQ). Now I'm not so sure. Since I've gotten better at it, it's become incredibly addictive. I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to just stitch-in-the-ditch or do some minimalist quilting. It doesn't mean that every inch of every quilt needs to be quilted. It still depends on the quilt; its design, use, etc. I'm just saying that it's really, really difficult to not keep going when you're FMQ.

I can safely thank (or blame) Cindy Needham. I have taken both of her Craftsy courses and have watched them both a number of times. Design It, Quilt It: Free-Form Techniques has some great tips on FMQ. The one that got me though, is Machine Quilting Wholecloth Quilts. This course is about creating Wholecloth quilts (basically from one piece of fabric as opposed to a pieced top). Since most of the quilts are just one colour, which means ample opportunities to FMQ.

Her incredible quilts are usually made of vintage linens over plain cotton or silk fabric. Cindy clearly loves her vintage linens and incorporates them on wholecloth quilts while highlighting the original creator's work. This is all beautiful and truthfully, a little intimidating. So, instead of starting with a wholecloth quilt made of linen, I've started with a project that was less intimidating but that let me FMQ like crazy. It's creating a wholecloth quilt from large print fabric. You use a fabric that has interesting shapes that would be fun to quilt, and you quilt it from the back. Let me explain.

The fabric you quilt on becomes the back of the quilt

Here's the fabric that I chose. It's got all kinds of interesting shapes that would be fun to quilt. I created a quilt sandwich with some lovely light yellow-orange fabric. I chose a couple of threads that would go well with the fabric. I used a thicker thread to outline the shapes while the other finer thread was used for the scribbling and other FMQ shapes such as pebbles, straight lines, S-curves and feathers.

Large print wholecloth quilt

All of the quilting is done on the front of the large print fabric. The beauty comes when you look at the other side! Isn't it amazing that quilting that rather gaudy fabric could create a piece of such simplicity and elegance?

This technique is perfect for quilting with metallic threads. These can be very finicky to quilt with unless they are in the bobbin. Since this project is quilted from the back, it highlights all of the bobbin thread. As you can see from the photo, the flowers were quilted with the metallic thread, sometimes 3 or 4 times so that they will show up.

Here are images of some of the details. The metallic thread and the beading add an elegant touch. You can see the scribbling, pebbles and feathers between the outlines of the flowers and leaves.

Details

More details of metallic thread and beading

What I learned:

• Quilting from the back of the quilt took some getting used to but what an end-product! I couldn't wait to take it out to see the results.
• I've since tried to work with metallic thread that was not in the bobbin. What a mess!
• This was a great project to practice FMQ. There was TONS of FMQ and you can't tell from the end product if you followed the lines or not!
• I suspect there will be a few more of these wholecloth large print wall hangings since they were sooooo much fun to work with.
• I may be ready to work with some linens. I'll start with hankies that I picked up in China. At least if doesn't turn out as well as I'd like, I won't have destroyed a vintage piece!

I linked up to Free Motion Mavericks. Have a look!

Re-quilting a Door Hanging

About 3 years ago I made my first door hanging. I wanted something on the door that wasn't a wreath - it was either make something or repaint the door (in other words, a no-brainer!) I started with four different panels and incorporated various elements from magazines etc. I found some lovely appliqué of flowers and a Canada goose, so I decided to work around these.

Since the hanging would be used in the summer, I chose a white background and lighter colours. The bottom-left panel had the flowers appliqué while the top-right had the Canada goose. I made a block for each of the other panels. The bottom panel had a basket block with flower fabric while the top block was a star with evening colours. I added a star above the goose and embroidered our last name underneath it (I didn't want anyone leaving with it!)

Original quilting

That was the extent of my door hanging. I had very little experience machine quilting so I did a little bit of stitch in the ditch and a few wavy lines here and there and called it done.

When I made that first door hanging, my intention was to have one for each season. This summer I finished my second, spring door hanging. I had learned many lessons about door hangings by then, so it wasn't white, but rather bright pink, green and orange. Nothing calm about that one!

As I've mentioned in my last post, the quilting I do depends a lot on the amount of energy I have in the evenings and on weekends. Low energy this summer has meant that I have watched many Craftsy courses. The one that has inspired me the most lately has been Cindy Needham's Design it, Quilt it: Free-Form Techniques. Since I'm always looking for projects to practice my free motion quilting (FMQ) on, I took out that first door hanging. I had nothing to loose. That door hanging had served me well for two years, so if I messed it up, it wasn't the end of the world.

Stencil for the basket

I really wish I had taken a before picture. In the photo above, the lines represent roughly the original quilting. As you can see, it was pretty sparse - I just didn't know what to quilt.

In the re-quilting, I started with stencils. I used a border flower stencil for the bottom-left side. I added a flower stencil on the basket and then a sun, two stars, a fleur-de-lys and a diamond pattern in the top-right.

Here is some of the FMQ I did:

FMQ using stencils, lines, echoing and swirls

• I added echoing around the flowers, dragonfly, the Canada goose and the star. They had already been bordered but the echoing is much more effective. 
• I worked with the original straight lines above the flowers and added more. 
• Swirls were added around the basket as well as to the left of the Canada goose.
• I scribbled in the white triangles and squares within the basket as well as around the embroidery. That provided lovely contrast.

That filled in most of the space. I really didn't know what to do with the rest of the background, so I watched the Background chapter of Cindy Needham's video once more. I figured out that I had to block off the areas that were still blank and work each one separately. Breaking down the area really helped.

FMQ pebbles within S curves and Dot-to-Dot quilting

I also practiced drawing the swirls and the pebbles a lot, so that by the time I started FMQ, my hand muscles knew exactly what to do. As Cindy suggested, I also used my fingertips to guide the FMQ - that was extremely helpful.

For the star block on the top-left, I used that trusty dot-to-dot from Angela Walter's Dot-to-Dot quilting technique. I didn't want to distract from the design, especially for the windmill in the middle of the block.

Re-quilted door hanging

What I learned:

• I thought that I would really dislike making repetitive designs such as swirls and pebbles. It was very tedious before I got the motion down, but after that, it was really enjoyable and very Zen. Not at all what I was expecting!
• A WHITE door hanging is NOT a good idea. I knew that it would be subject to the elements, but I didn't realise that it might blow away and land in the garden. Darker or brighter colours are much better suited to door hangings.
• I am very happy with the results. The only thing I would do differently the next time is to plan out the stencils a little more. Most were fine, but I overdid it in the top-right panel.   
• Cindy Needham says that we should have movement, depth, and light and shadow in our quilting. I think I'm getting there.

I shared this post at Sarah's blog, Confessions of a Fabric Addict for her Whoop Whoop party! and Link-A-Finish Friday with Richard and Tanya Quilts. Check out the fun.