February 16, 2013

The First Two



What's this you say? My Skill Builder blocks, fondly known as Soundwave (top) and Magnum (bottom).
Confession time: I have never used safety pins to baste before. Gasp! I always use the 505 spray so this was new.  And...I have never free motion quilted before this month so all kinds of new beginnings for me.



Although I enjoy the look of dense quilting, I'm not sure that I like to do it.  You can see on the right side of the Magnum block I attempted to spread it out a little bit and made it bigger and it went just fine, right up until I turned the corner.  That's ok though, I am just learning and it doesn't bother me one bit. 

The Meander pattern looks so easy, you just move your needle around.  Yeah right. In my head, the mantra that got repeated over and over was "don't cross a line, don't run into stitches...don't cross a line, don't run into stitches".  It's funny to me now.  

This series is QAYG  - which stands for Quilt as you Go.  You quilt each block before you sew them together.  It's awesome! You see before I quilted these, I quilted my Madrona Road challenge quilt all in one night, using dense pebbles.  Groan! The result was fantastic but my fingers were sore.  After doing a bigger piece, these 15 x 15 blocks are like butter!  

I used the gloves and they were fabulous, but I am hoping to get a Supreme Slider at Quiltcon after I have the chance to actually test it touch, place fabric on it, etc...before I buy.  

Ok, back to the Skill Builder.  Have you heard of it? Are you participating? Jump right in if you haven't.  Alyssa has such complete lessons, tips, you tube tutorials and just great advice and she is providing this for free.  Hello? Super generous - please join us - the lessons are fabulous!!