Thursday, April 27, 2023

Wild Hexies and Indecision on Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 428 of Free Motion Mavericks. I actually have some free motion quilting (FMQ) to show you 😊 It was my FMQ or darning foot that was giving me grief. I figured it out and I'm zooming right along. Yeah!

Cute critters on the Wild Hexies Quilt

I have two rows of hexies to FMQ. I decided that these would be filled with cute animals and flowers. I'm using the 501 Quilting Motifs by the editors of Quiltmaker Magazine (see related links below). I traced the images onto Golden Threads quilting paper, pinned the paper to the quilt and stitched over it.

Teddy Bear with a heart

Teddy bear traced and FMQ

Here are some of the other designs that I FMQ this evening.

Baby bird

Elephant

Baby duck

Skating penguin

Owl

I'm really hoping that even if they are difficult to see, that the recipient will eventually love finding all of the different things on his quilt!

2023 Table Scraps Challenge

April's challenge was using the letters Y and/or N and the colour purple. I couldn't get past the obvious "Yes and No". I used a hand-dyed pink fabric and stitched on some letters. Purple for Yes, Blue for No, and some FMQ and embroidery for Maybe?

Indecision

I had a great time FMQ meandering flowers around the top and the Yes. I then switched to more angular shapes around the No and finally some gentle curves and hoops for the Maybe?

Sometimes it's so easy to make decisions, but often it isn't. I used to be quite decisive at my job but I think that I'm mellowing out and that decisions are not as obvious as they used to be. Either that or I'm just tired or don't care enough to decide 😁. These days, the hardest decisions are what's for supper? and what should I work on next?

A place for my cup and a reminder to
not take things to seriously 😊

What I learned

I was so relieved that my Jag (sewing machine) is fine. When I cleaned it, I noticed that I had two darning feet. When I looked at them, I realised that one of them was nicked, which is why the thread was sometimes catching. That foot has now been put away with a paper attached to it to say that it needs to be fixed. I suspect that a little bit of sanding could fix it.
It was so nice to FMQ the challenge piece without issues!
For that piece, I really didn't want to spend much time on it, so instead of adding a binding, I just used a zig-zag stitch. It really is perfect for it.
I had only FMQ the "Maybe?" but it wasn't very visible, so I took out some thick thread and embroidered around it in bright pink.
I really enjoyed FMQ the animals onto the Wild Hexies quilt. It was my OMG for April and I'm not sure that it will be finished in time. I do wish that I had said that it would be quilted by the end of the month - that might still happen. I'm looking forward to finishing it and passing it along to the baby!
I was looking at the FMQ that I had done previously. I just might unstitch some of it and repair the stitching. I would hate for the quilting to get undone.