Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts

Sunday, March 19, 2023

Project Quilting 14-6 - Conquer a fear

I'm so glad that I saw Kim Lapacek's newsletter on Friday, because that gave me a whole day to prepare this fun quilt. I couldn't resist creating something that might help me though my fears....of submitting a quilt to a show! Maybe this will help 😊

Courage

When it comes to my art, there isn't that much that I'm afraid of. It seems that ideas abound (and if they don't, I just think it through or wait it out), new techniques to try, and now I even have time to play 😊. I know that if I create a mess, that I'll figure out a way to fix it. I'm also not looking for perfection. What does scare me though, is rejection.

Courage

I'm not someone who takes risks. I've applied for jobs that I didn't get, but somehow that didn't phased me much. However, having someone reject my creation is more than I can bear. So I created this piece to help me through this fear.

In the centre of the flower, I wrote down words of the things that I fear - of the feelings that I'm afraid of, such as rejection, unworthy, criticism, submit, mistakes, imperfect, humiliation. I realise that imperfect is in there, but if you want to submit a piece to a show, it usually has to be close to perfect!😕

Fears

To counter those fears, I wrote encouraging words in the petals: believe, courage, process, fun, trust, just do it, practice, create.

Encouragement

The only process picture that I took is this one. I created a template on tracing paper and then cut out 12 petals. I then trimmed the petal template and cut out the adhesive backing.

Cutting out petals

What I learned

Chevy
If I had thought through the process, I would have added the adhesive to the fabric before I cut it. I really should be remembering this by now.
I wanted to make a colourful, encouraging piece about my fears. I wanted it to include hope, not just darkness.
The flower top with the petals is out of proportion to the stem and leaves, and that's intentional. It's about the flower and its petals. It reminds me of taking pictures of Chevy where all you can see is her head, while everything is behind her!
I'm amazed that the words in the petals fit - I usually run out of space!
I had a great time FMQ the background with feathers. I love how the feather stems show up and give the piece mouvement.

Project Quilting 14.6

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Free Motion Mavericks link up

Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks (week 230).

I've only written one post since the last time I hosted Free Motion Mavericks - I've been really busy at work and sick with some kind of bug. Nothing serious but I feel like I've been hit with a ton of bricks! So this is going to be a very short post.

Here is a mini that I made three years ago when I was learning to write again. I followed a video by Joanne Sharpe, read her books and practiced writing my letters for a while.

Be Here Now - a reminder

This mini is on the wall behind my sewing machine. It's important to be in the present and focus, especially when I FMQ.

Related links

Learning to write - again, April 17, 2016
Whimsical Writing with Joanne Sharpe

Linking parties
I'll be linking this post to several linking parties. Let's see what's going on 😊 Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Moving It Forward, What I Made Monday, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Midweek Makers, Finished or Not Friday and Friday Foto Fun, Design Wall Monday

Free Motion Mavericks
There were seven great link-ups two weeks ago. Thanks everyone who linked up and visited! It's always lovely to have virtual visitors. Afton Warrick of Quilting Mod finished her tasty Perfect Treats quilt. The FMQ of those great ice cream treats was done by Tisha Cavanaugh of Quilt Icing. If you haven't seen it, it's well worth the click!

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Free Motion Mavericks and funky square flowers

Welcome to my second week of hosting the Free Motion Mavericks link-up. Muv, who is located across the pond, and I are taking turns organising the party!😊

Free Motion Mavericks (Week 214)

On my last post of Free Motion Mavericks, I shared my attempts at creating our logo with my own free motion quilting (FMQ) writing. A few readers were surprised to find out that it was possible to write using FMQ, so I thought that I would share some writing from my piece, A White History of Art. It's much easier to write in FMQ when the thread blends with the fabric!

Writing with FMQ: WHITE, austere and Elite

Funky Square Flower

For this week's post, I decided to learn to FMQ the Square Flower in Lori Kennedy's Free-Motion Machine Quilting 1-2-3.

Start by drawing the design - in this case, the Square Flower

As always, the first thing I did was to practice drawing it. This was one of the pretty pages - the rest of my practicing was on scraps of paper!

I often practicing FMQ the design on a fabric sandwich that I've made for this purpose. However, this time I practiced directly on a wheelchair quilt that I made years ago for my grandmother. Since I made it before I learned to FMQ, there is a lot of negative space to practice in 😊.

Chevy can't resist a quilt on the floor

It was difficult practicing on the light fabric since I could barely see the white thread. It did come out on the darker fabrics.

Funky Square Flowers

More Square Flowers designed by Lori Kennedy

The flowers showed up surprisingly well on the back of the quilt

Flowers on the back of the quilt

I quilted the Square Flowers on each half of the sets of two strips. You can see that I'll be able to keep practicing on this quilt for a while.

A row of Square Flowers

What I learned

I really like the funky look of these square flowers. They are so much fun, and can be made with the centre in the middle of the space, or at one side for a lopsided flower.
Having something sandwiched and ready to practice FMQ makes my practice much less of a bother.

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 😊

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Best of 2016

I love participating in these specials because they give me another reason to write a post and review what I've learned.

Best of 2016 Linky Party

Since my blog is about Quilting and Learning, I thought that I would focus on the lessons I've put into practice this year as well as some of the lessons I learned the hard way!

Lessons Put Into Practice

The lesson that I put most into practice was to use tape to mark off the edges of a quilt before doing FMQ. I did add to this lesson - place the tape very carefully or your edges won't be straight!!! (January 14 and Feb 19)

Taping the edge to stop FMQ

Make sure the tape is straight.

Practice drawing the stencil first.

Practice drawing a stencil pattern before free motion quilting it. It's well worth the time. (January 2)

If the project isn't turning out the way you want it to, put it aside for a while. (February 8 and March 30)

If it's not fun, what's the point?

The hardest lesson that I had to learn this year was a big one. Quilting started becoming a full time job and wasn't any fun. That's not where I wanted to be. I learned this in October after working on the Gaudi Cathedral Windows project. I was so disappointed with the results that I didn't even include it in my trunk show. (November 18)

New Techniques Learned

I tried many new techniques this year.

I learned to write on textiles with pens and FMQ. (April 17)
I made my first needle felting piece. (June 8)

The Feather

I worked on an English Paper Piecing project (which is still a Work in Progress - WIP) (July 31)
I learned to make a t-shirt quilt with the guidance of Terrific T-Shirt Quilts by Karen M. Burns (August 23)

Great Hockey Jersey Quilt

Parting Words of Wisdom

Here are a few things I've learned this year that may help you in your quilting.

To colour or write on fabric, iron some freezer paper to the back of the fabric. This will stabilize it. (May 15)
Account for your borders or finishing technique before you quilt it! (May 8)
Beading is fun in moderation. (April 17)
Free motion quilting is different when it's done on a larger scale. (June 24)

A Beautiful Day Baby Quilt - with large scale FMQ

I hope some of these lessons learned will help you learn from my mistakes! Participating blogs have linked to Meadow Mist Designs. Encourage the participants by viewing their posts. I've also linked to Needle and Thread Thursday, Midweek Maker, Off the Wall Fridays, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?

Thanks for coming by. Happy New Year!