FMQ recap

The free motion quilting challenge has come to an end. I can say that I am proud to have kept up with the challenges and one bonus challenge. Thanks to SewCalGal for hosting this challenge and to all the tutors who put together the challenges. I learned a lot and some of my fear has gone in doing free motion quilting. I have also enjoyed seeing the other participants entries. They have inspired me too.

So here are my practice pieces for the year.

January's tutorial was presented by Frances Moore. This was a fun design to do but I had some problems getting stuck in places as you can see. I will have to learn to think ahead of time where I will go as I am quilting.

 Diane Gaudynski showed us how to do feathers in February. I really like how this turned out. I ended up making a good size throw pillow out of this piece for my son and DIL.

March brought fun loops and flowers by Ann Fahl.

In April Don Linn taught us how to transfer a pattern onto the fabric for quilting. I know I will use this technique again.

For May Leah Day showed us to do some different kind of stipple quilting to fill in spaces.

June introduced us to Cindy Needham showed us how to divide our piece into sections and fill in with free motion quilting. This piece shows the previous two tutorials along with my divide and conquer method of filling in the background.  Fun!

I had fun with the July challenge. Angela Walters showed us how to do tiles and fill in with swirls.

In August Wendy Sheppard showed us a design called Jester's hats. Oh! Boy! this one was so difficult for me. My brain had a hard time doing this design even though Wendy showed how simple it really was to make.

For September Paula Reid showed us how to quilt on lines. She provided this pattern for us. This is the first quilt I did using one of the challenges. It was a preemie quilt I donated to our local hospital.

In October, Teri Lucas challenged us to quilt our name and then fill in a six inch square with fun quilting designs. Teri showed us how to do the nautilus shell which I thought was fun to do.

There were also some bonus challenges during the year too. I did the one presented by Susan Brubaker Knapp. I had fun with this one.  Susan showed us how to let nature inspire us.

In November, Sarah Vedeler showed us how to do a swirly design that would be great for borders.

And last but not least, during December Patsy Thompson showed us how to do free motion borders with mirror image feathers.

I am going to pat myself on the back for doing all the challenges. Some months I wondered if I would be able to do them but I managed to keep up. I do appreciate all those machine quilters that shared their talents with us bloggers.

Next I will be going to my sewing room to decide which three UFOs I will be working on for January. I hope you will sew along with me and get some of your UFOs done for January too. You can read about the guidelines on this post.

With Passion,
Carrie P.

December Free Motion Quilting Challenge

I can't believe I kept up with all the challenges to better my free motion quilting skills.  I have been very intimidated by free motion quilting but have overcome my fear with these challenges. This month's tutorial was brought to us by Patsy Thompson. Patsy gave us ideas for borders. I had fun with this challenge even though I was having some issues with my tension. You can see the whole tutorial plus a video on the SewCalGal blog. 

 We were able to print out some pdfs with the border ideas. I traced my borders on with washable blue pen. The center was empty. Since it was Christmas time I decided to do my center in a holly design I got from qisforquilter. I also decided to do my quilting in a red, green, and white variegated thread. I traced the holly design in the center and then added all the border lines from the pdf.

 I quilted the center and then worked on each of the borders. The feather border was a little tricky for me because they were to be mirror images. I had to draw them on with the blue wash out pen first which made it much easier for me.

 After I finished all the feathers I decided to go back and do something that Patsy calls hyper quilting.

 It is adding more quilting inside the feather designs to accentuate them usually done with a different color thread. I decided to add some lines with a little curl to them in the center of the feathers.

 Here is my piece all finished. It doesn't look too bad. Thanks Patsy for sharing this tutorial for December.

With Passion,
Carrie P.

Christmas One More Time

As you all may recall I would link my the pillow covers I made to Christmas Through the Year that Darlene and Cheryl were hosting this year. They were both having a grand giveaway in November and I won the giveaway that Cheryl was having. I knew she made some things for the winner but I had no idea that the box would be so big when it arrived. Inside
were all kinds of things wrapped up. I let her know I got the box and told her was going to wait until Christmas day to open them all up. She said I should open them before Christmas because some of the things I could use. I decided to open one a day which was really fun to do.

I got this little pin cushion jar which had candy in it but as you can see I ate it.

 There was this sweet little kitchen towel which I am going to leave out all winter.

 A table runner which I should have ironed but just didn't get around to it but I did use it on one of my tables. I love those trees. It was to long to get the whole thing in a photo.

 A really neat hot mitt which I definitely could use.

 A mug rug.

 This really cute tree table topper.

 This was a place mat I think, at least it was about that size.

 And this bag full of

these goodies. I just could not believe my eyes each time I opened a gift. There was also another kitchen towel which is red and white and it is in the left side of the top photo.

 I had the best time opening all the gifts, Cheryl. Thanks so much for making my Christmas special. Many thanks to you and Darlene for hosting Christmas Through The Year too.

If you would like to check out the program for next year, Kim, from Lily Patch Quilts is hosting this year.

I also won this book in November from Beyond the Reef. Thanks Natalie.

With Passion,
Carrie P.

Nothing But UFOs in 2013

I hope you all had a great Christmas! I did and I am ready to get back to my sewing room and back to blogging. 

How many times have we all talked about the UFOs we have in our sewing room? I know I have. I know that it has been so long since I have looked through them I don't even remember what I have started. So my goal is to work on nothing but UFOs this year. If you would like to join me here are some guidelines to play along with me. You can also grab the button and add it to your blog. (thanks to my daughter for designing the button)

1. Choose three UFOs from your stash.

2.After you have chosen  three UFOs do a blog post by the 4th of each month and fill in the link gadget on my blog which I will have added when I do my post.

3. Write a post by the 4th of the month showing and telling what you would like to accomplish
with those three UFOs. Finishing to completion is the goal for that month.

4. After you write the post come back and link it up to my blog post.

5. On the last day of the month I will do a post about what I accomplished.  You can do the same. If you completely finish at least one of your UFOs you will be entered in a giveaway. Completely finished means a quilt has been quilted and bound or a different kind of project is ready to use.

6. I don't know exactly what the prizes will be yet but it will be from my sewing room because I am trying to "go simple/downsize."

7. You do not have to participate each month but the months that you do I would love for you to link up so that I and others can cheer you along.

This is going to be tough for me because if you follow my blog you know how I love to do all those great BOM that bloggers put out each year. I am already seeing some of them being talked about. I know Susan (no blog) who reads my blog will keep me straight!

I hope many of you will join me this year in finally finishing some projects we have started. Be watching for my post on January 1, 2013.

With Passion,
Carrie P.

Preparations

I have been busy preparing for Christmas. 

 I decided to put all my vintage Christmas ornaments in the wooden bowl Mr. P. made for me last Christmas instead of on the tree this year. I think they look very special in the bowl.

 Yesterday Mr. P. and I went to the mountains to pick out our tree.  It is all decorated and it looks so pretty all lit up with tiny white lights. This photo is some of the trees at the farm.

 Along the way to the Christmas tree farm I spotted three barn blocks.

 I have also had the binding prepared for this quilt. Half of the binding is sewn on. This was a free embroidery sew along from Clover and Violet.

 I had my friend Laura do the quilting on this one. She does this fabulous work on her home sewing machine.

 Laura used variegated thread even though it is hard to tell in the photo. Look at the little meandering she did in the white part of the blocks.

Thanks Laura for doing fabulous job on my quilt. You should go by her blog and see the latest quilts she has done. 

One day I would also like to prepare fabrics to make this quilt one day. I won this book in a giveaway on Sinta's blog. It has some really pretty quilts in it but this one on the cover is my favorite. Thanks Sinta!

I am also busy preparing for other things that are going to take me away from blogging for a while. I hope to be back after Christmas. I wish you all Christmas Blessings!

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

With Passion,

Carrie P.