Free motion

No class this week! So the goal for the week: quilt as much as possible! And to enhance this goal, the LQS called and told me the small Machinger's gloves they ordered for me are in! (They do help grip a little bit...free motion is still insanely difficult- hurts the wrist, and this is with a small quilt. I can't imagine the force needed to move a large quilt. Need to get my table made so that I can use the supreme slider.)

So anyhow, yesterday I tried to do some simple straightline quilting: absolute disaster. The basting must have been off, huge puckers and TERRIBLE drag. Today I changed direction and started quilting the pieces of my math quilt. When I quilt the four pieces I'll sash them together. I am doing a combination of filler designs and an all over design. There are 4 white squares in the center that get a design, plus a colored square in them. The all over design is a loop-meander.

I've mentioned Free Motion Quilting Project before. This woman is amazing- so helpful to the begining quilter. I really didn't even know I could do things other than meander. She's really inspired me.

One of the designs I tried is "Super Daisy"- I didn't want to outline the square on the side, so once the Daisy filled the space I just stippled the remaining background. She also stacks her threads, something I'm not too good at, so I didn't trace back more than just a little bit.

And this is the BACK (the back never looks as good as the front)- the front was white on white, so I had to show you the back. I did this design four times, and this was the best one, but the others aren't horrible. I am hoping that the designs even out a bit in the wash...

Also- I'm using cotton thread for the first time (Gutterman's) and I don't know if I like it a lot. I've gotten a lot of skipped stitches and thread puke. I've never had that problem before. I also changed to quilting needles- and I don't know if that is the problem. It seems too big for this, but it's the smaller one. The woman from that blog recommends a non-cotton thread- I might need to try it, or try the knitpicks thread. I really liked that for piecing.