Tag Archives: free motion quilting

• 20 Comments

•

The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, AccuQuilt, Hobbs, and Aurifil.

The April challenge was to use the AccuQuilt Ready. Set. GO! to create a 40" to 48" square baby quilt using AccuQuilt Dies. I asked people on Instagram to vote on my fabric selection for this project. I pulled a rainbow of scraps, but then I also liked the green/blue subset. The green/blue palette was the overwhelming winner.

The Ready. Set. GO! collection includes the GO! Qube 8" Mix & Match Block which is a set of 8 dies in a variety of geometric shapes for making 8" finished blocks. I used dies 1, 2, and 4 for cutting all my green and blue squares and triangles as well as my 4 1/2" background squares. I appreciated how fast and easy it was to cut out the pieces for my scrappy project. I look forward to teaching my kids how to use the AccuQuilt, because it's easy enough for them to use (and I currently do all the cutting for their quilts).

I'm drawn to quilts with expansive negative space, like my Island Batik quilt from last April. I used Rice (from the Island Batik Neutral Foundation Basics) for my background and used my favorite design tool for creating my quilt design: graph paper. The cutting was fast and easy. The piecing was fast and easy. I decided to have fun with free motion quilting this one, using a variety of motifs in the different sections of the quilt. I like to take a photo of the quilt top and markup the image with potential quilting motifs on my phone. Here's my initial sketch.

I didn't think too much about how hard the wishbone quilting in the center background sections would be. Given that the width of that section varies from about 6 to 11 inches wide, these are very long wishbones. It started out a little dicey, but overall I'm pleased with the look. In general, I like organic quilting and don't strive for perfection when quilting. Precision sometimes, but not perfection.

This was the first project I used my new free motion quilting foot on and it went very well. I am loving the visibility of the open toe, and the hopping foot went from distracting to "the new normal" pretty quickly. This is a serious step up from the darning foot I've been using to free motion quilt for 7 years! I used 50wt Aurifil Light Grey Turquoise (#2805) from the Pastel collection for my quilting.

I chose Hobbs Heirloom Premium cotton batting. The 45" x 60" size crib batting was perfect for my 40" x 40" quilt.

In the end, the quilt reminds me a bit of nautical signal flags, though that wasn't at all my inspiration. I'm toying with making another version in warm colors for my May project, though I'll likely decide to do something else

I had nearly enough of my remnant Rice binding from my Fortune Teller quilt and added scraps from the cut off edges of my quilt backing to lengthen the binding. A little hard to see in the photo above, but the two blue and green sections of binding are on the upper right and lower left corners of the quilt.

 

Please visit the other Island Batik Ambassadors to see their AccuQuilt Ready. Set. GO! Challenge Baby Quilts from this month.

I'm linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday and TGIFF.

• 186 Comments

•

This is the beginning of week two of a month of posts by Island Batik Ambassadors featuring all of the newest collections of fabric. Today I'm sharing what I made with my bundle of Fortune Teller fabric. Way back in July I was so excited to open this beautiful rainbow of fabric.

My quilt features all 20 fabrics from the collection and is 80" x 96"! I think that makes it one of the three largest quilts I've made. I optimized for using all I had of the twelve fabrics that make up the center of the quilt and didn't really think about just how big it was going to be, how much binding that would take, or how hard it would be to hold up.

I just love the bold colors and couldn't resist making a rainbow. The triangles features all the multicolor prints from the collection.

The other part of my optimization was that I had a queen sized Hobbs Heirloom cotton batting. Thank you, Hobbs!

Once it was pieced, I visited a local quilt shop to longarm quilt it myself. I chose a motif that would offer great texture without being too dense. I like that this one is quilted in rows, but that each row kind of nests with the row above it.

 

I used my machine binding technique to attach the nearly 30 feet of binding. The binding is Rice. I like that the color reminds me of clouds... fitting for a rainbow quilt.

I love how happy the color is and how great it looks on the red couch. I look forward to curling up with the quilt, and seeing it enjoyed by my family. It will be the biggest quilt in the fort building pile. :-)

 

SARAH GOER QUILTS GIVEAWAY (US Residents Only) GIVEAWAY HAS ENDED. For your chance to win a Mystery Bundle of Island Batik fabric, enter with Rafflecopter below by leaving a comment on this blog post and tell me your favorite color(s) and/or by being a newsletter subscriber. Not a newsletter subscriber yet? Subscribe here, click to confirm your subscription in the email that comes to you. At the end of the giveaway I will email the randomly selected winner and they will have 48 hours to reply to claim their prize or I will select a new winner. The Mystery Fabric Bundle will be mailed to the winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you for visiting! Don't miss out on entering the great giveaways on many stops of the Island Batik Getaway! And Island Batik is giving away A Rainbow of 20 Fat Quarters of Island Batik fabric.

I've linked up to Needle and Thread Thursday.

• 16 Comments

•

Fandangle Scrappy Squares is a variation on my technique from my Planned Improv: Scrappy Squares workshop. This piece followed my Modern Batik Scrappy Squares (<-- which will be hanging at PIQF in Santa Clara, CA Oct. 11-14). I shared my quilt top as part of the Fandangle blog hop in July. Last month I rented time on a local longarm to quilt it up and I'm excited to share the finish with you today for TGIFF. (Be sure to scroll to the bottom to link up your projects and visit the other finishes this week!)

I rented time on a longarm at Always Quilting (San Mateo, CA) for the first time... eleven months after taking the certification class. I warmed up a smaller quilt and then loaded this one up for some more dense quilting.

I opted for two motifs, a flame design in the grey background and spirals in the feature squares.

There's something exciting about seeing the full view of the quilt during the quilting process. I did pause on occasion to drool over the beautiful texture.

Just like my FMQ on my domestic machine I strive not for perfection, but for relative similarity in the density of the quilting across a space.

This quilt took me about 2 hours (and 3.5 bobbins) to quilt. It is about 41" x 54". I considered a grey thread that would blend in the background and I'm really happy that I went with the turquoise. It provided such a great variety of blending and contrasting across the quilt top.

I opted for a bit of fussy cutting from my favorite print in the collection to make my bias binding, finished with some machine binding.

I'm so pleased with this finish. I just love the cool palette of Fandangle and really enjoyed working with it.

Please share your Friday Finish in the linkup below and be sure to hop around to view what everyone else has been up to this week! Thanks for visiting!!

I've linked up to the Q3 Finish Along finishes linkup. See my whole Q3 list here.