FMQ Challenge

In an effort to improve my free motion quilting skills I am participating in the 2015 Free Motion Quilting Challenge hosted by QuiltShopGal.

I followed along with the previous years challenges and learnt so much from the many incredibly talented quilters who kindly donated their time and expertise.  When I saw that Darlene was running another challenge this year I jumped at the chance to get on board.

This months expert is Molly Hanson who has has featured in many magazine articles and has written the book Free Motion Quilting for Beginners.

We were challenged to make a pillow using one of three options.  I have gone for option 3 - filling a heart shape motif with feathers.  I changed it up a bit and instead of filling a heart shaped motif with feathers, I have created a heart shape with 2 feathers converging (well that was what I was going for anyway!).

I was really pushed for time so instead of a pillow I made a mini mini.  It is only 10" x 10" and the feathered heart was pretty quick to do.  The double crosshatching on the other hand took F.O.R.E.V.E.R.  There was a ton of threads to tie of and bury which almost made me throw the whole thing away but I made myself persevere.

I tried to brighten it up by hyper quilting in orange but I am not sure that it had the effect I was going for.  In fact I may even like the back better than the front!

  
If I was to do it again, I wouldn't put the little swirly thing at the bottom of the heart.  It looks a bit odd but once quilted I really, really didn't want to unpick so it stayed.

Final thoughts - I love quilting feathers.  I prefer free hand to structured feathers and I look forward to incorporating them more frequently into my quilting.

Until next time.

Sue