FMQ Update

The last post ended with a bit of a cliff hanger. I'm sure you have been asking yourselves, 'What Happened Bernadette?!?' Well, your long-awaited answer is here. Free motion quilting is a lot of fun. As I was going along I began to remember tips that I had read on other websites. Now I know understand what everyone was saying. (These pictures show the back. The quilting shows up much better there)

Here is a list of things that I learned. These are all things that I had heard before but they never made sense until I tried it.  

1) Start in the middle and work your way out. I kind of did this but I also left bits (in the middle - that space in between the 'crop circles') that I thought I would go back and do. This is going to be difficult because this middle area now has quilting on all its sides boxing it into a perfect bubble. I'm unsure how to proceed with this. 

2) Choose a small pattern so that you can motion freely with small movements. Initially, I decided that these big circular movements would be a great idea. It was not. I had to move the quilt around a lot and this resulted in a lot of tugging, repositioning and therefore lots of little jagged seams instead of smooth motions. The meandering bits in the corners were a whole lot easier to do and the stitching is smoother and more consistent.

3) Pin. Pin. Pin. Then pin some more. 

Will definitely be doing more of this next year. 

Happy Holidays!