With A Very Merry just dying to be finished,
I'm on a mission to master a few new
FMQ designs. I prefer to use designs that I feel
comfortable with, are fun, and allow for mistakes.
The past holiday kept me so busy that it wasn't until
Monday that I was able to sit down at my machine to
try a few out. Please bear in mind that these are all
"first runs." I purposely don't try real hard at first
because I want to see how easily (or not!) that they
might work up for me--if I get it barely passable
first time through, it'll show some promise.
blog for some ideas and came up with a few.
These are icicle lights:
A "first run" through this one tells me I would have
issues with straight lines, especially while tugging
on a big quilt...then again, this little sample piece
actually moved too easily so maybe it'd not be that
bad? I think I could get the "return exactly over
previous line" worked out though.
As much as I want to put swirls into this quilt,
I don't think that'll be a go for me just yet.
(I'm not posting that picture! Not up for that much humiliation today.)
Maybe with a lot of practice but that's not something
I want to take the time out for now, nor do I want to
try something new that I clearly struggle with
on this project.
The swirls on this fill-in pattern were about as far
as I felt comfortable with. I like to think through the
same situations (curve to the left/right, up/down, etc)
an actual quilt (aka, heavy, hard to maneuver) would
provide. Toward the end of this I felt that, with a little
more practice, I could get it...except for returning
back down on top of a swirl already stitched.
My husband, who, thankfully, has a fairly picky eye,
told me he saw no problem straying from
the swirl a little. What do you think? I know I can do
better--just not perfect. Does it need to be exact or
does it kind of give it a ribbon-look if I happen to get
off track a bit? And I'm definitely going to have
to get a more even-pattern look to it.
These flowing star flowers look like poinsettias, no?
I just can't see how to incorporate the "flow" part.
The flowers, though--those showed some promise.
Sooo...
It's messy in the pic but I now have it figured out how
to handle the "back down between the petals" part
so I think this could be perfected enough.
And it's really fun.
I'm thinking of just using white thread. I don't like
to call that much attention to my quilting...for now.
For now, I'm taking a break to make a few more
Christmas gifts!
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