2015 FMQ Challenge/January

Well, it has been awhile  since I took this challenge...2012 I did this with Sewcalgal, and now again.

The new blog is here http://quiltshopgal.com/category/2015-free-motion-quilting-challenge/.

This is one of the best ways to try new adventures with your machine quilting. Most of you know that I am a long time hand quilter trying my hand at FMQ.  This time around, we were given 3 options that we could use. I decided to use 2 of them in the one pillow. 

I used the method that France's Moore showed us in the 2012 challenge.....

And the method shown by LuAnn Kessi for this years challenge...the feathered heart.

I wish I had thought to take pictures during the process, but you know me...I didnt...lol. 

So...here is my version of this heart pillow.

Here you can see the leaf with the swirl....

This shows the feathered heart...

Close up of the feathers.....

The whole pillow....measuring roughly 20"x20"

Now, if I were to do this again...I would take more time and fill the background in more densely.

But you know what I did???  I sat down to get a start ,ok??  Lol. I traced the heart outline...then stitched it. then I drew the spines freehand...stitched and couldn't stop!   Every few minutes I said to myself....just a little more.  Well, we all know what happened to that idea, eh.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The feathers are completely freehand...no tracing.

My quilting is far from perfect, but I am so very happy with this.

So, please follow the link above an see the many version of this pillow this month.