Thursday, April 19, 2012

Exercising with my Quilt aka Machine Quilting

As many of you know, I have been machine quilting this quilt. The center panel has been completely stitched in the ditch. However, since I have been keeping up with the Free Motion Quilt Challenge and checking in on Leah Day, I decided I should do more. Also, after going to MQX this past weekend, I thought I should push myself.

The hard part is deciding just what to do since each block is different. The center panel is quite large and rather hard to access. I have a Babylock Quest which is really just a domestic sewing machine. It's supposed to have a wider area under the arm to make it easier for machine quilting. It certainly didn't feel that way today!

I had bought this book years ago at a quilt show. It came with a panel that you could use to practice some of the motifs and designs found inside the book. This book is great! It has blocks inside with various ways of quilting. It also shows you how to divide your block and the different types of quilting you could try. Since my center is a pinwheel, I looked at the examples they had. I really loved one but since I had already stitched in the ditch, I didn't think it would look good. I decided on some patterns using straight lines.
This is rather difficult to see but I drew some lines using a yellow pastel chalk. I have some parallel lines drawn in the triangle and a design in the kite shaped piece. It was very easy to see while I was sewing. The hard part was maneuvering my quilt. I had to turn it so many times! If something was around my sewing table, the quilt would pick it up and fling it. I really felt like I was working out! My cheeks got all red and my heart was racing. I'm hoping I lost a few pounds but I tend to doubt it!

Anyways, this is how it turned out! I like it! Not sure it was worth the sweat but it's a learning experience and I like how it looks.


Here's the back. No puckers which is always nice. It feels nice to touch it. I love the way a quilt feels once it's been quilted! I know, weird, oh well!

I'm trying to decide how to quilt the triangles in the center panel. That's the next step. I'll be consulting my trusty Skillbuilder book!! Even though this isn't easy, I really do love doing this. It's nice to see your hard work paying off. I'm also working on my quilt guild's mystery quilt. I'll show you when I'm done this month's installment. I have 5 more rows left to sew.

12 comments:

  1. It looks great! Glad you finally took the plunge! But if you are free motion quilting, you shouldn't have to turn the quilt that much. You should be able to go back and forth and side to side. If you need any tips, I would be glad to help!!

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    1. I wish I was free motion quilting! I've done that before. I actually marked lines and had to sew them. I tried to sew continuous lines so ended up turning the quilt. Thanks for the offer! Might take you up on it at some point!!

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  2. Your machine quilting looks great. I am working to learn to machine quilt too. I think you are making great progress.

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  3. It looks really great, the more you do it the better and easy it will get.

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  4. Oh gosh I hope I didn't stick my big ole foot in my mouth. I thought you FMQ it! Believe me I'm no pro.I find so much help here in blog land that I wanna help to if I can;) your quilt is beautiful BTW.

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  5. It *is* fun to do one with challenge of different blocks, isn't it? (Karen Marchetti just finished one for customer and posted about it here--it's a lot of scenic blocks, but I found the different ways she quilted them inspiring. It's posted here: http://creativelongarmquilting.blogspot.com/2012/04/family-reunion-quilt.html

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  6. Gee, Rosemary. I really think your quilting muscles are looking toned and trim! LOL! Wish we could rely on quilting to give us all the excercise we need.
    Your quilt is looking great!

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  7. Hi Rosemary I am awarding you with the Liebster Blog Award. Please head on over to my blog and check it out congrats Pauline

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  8. Your quilting looks good! I do FMQ - still a medium newbie. I'll have to try quilting in the blocks 'one sunny day'. I agree, a quilt feels wonderful after it has been quilted. Indeed; quilting is workout! :)

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  9. Love your chanllenge blocks sampler and you're doing a fantastic job on the machine quilting!

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  10. perfect quilting for those pinwheels. great job.

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