MY TAKE ON FMQ USING A LONGARM OR A DOMESTIC SEWING MACHINE

Here is my pfaff.  Those who have been part of my blog from the beginning know that I have gone from a Bernina, Janome, pfaff, Janome, and back to a Pfaff.

I started out doing meandering on my Bernina even doing a king size quilt.

I had a Pfaff midarm in San Antonio, and now I have this Bailey Home Quilter.

I have found that I do not like to quilt on my longarm.  I don't mind doing meandering, swirls etc but nothing intricate.  I feel I do not have enough control.  I need a stiffer arm.  I felt the same with my mid arm.  I do like the long arm when I want something done in a hurry.

In fact, I am not much of an intricate quilter.  I have too much nervous energy and want it done and want it done now.  I tend to get bored.....I think I have issues with my mind wandering and my self wandering from project to project.

That being said, I was asked how I did the FMQ on this piece for Wendy's hop next week.

                                      


I did this on my pfaff that you see above.  I did not use any gadgets or devices.

It is far from perfect but I am happy with it.

You will see below how I formed the circles.

I took freezer paper, took a small plate and drew around it.

Then I placed the shiny side down and ironed it onto the fabric. 

Next was just taking my foot and sewing next to the circle.  Then I just put my foot next to the sewn circle and went around the inside.

Then I found a smaller circle and did the same thing and an even smaller circle for the center.

After that was done I just filled in the spaces with what ever took my fancy. 

I have to say I had a fun time doing this, and come next Friday you will see that I did this six times.  I even said to myself that I was surprised I stuck with it for so long and if I could do this six times then I could do this on a quilt.  So maybe I am getting more patience?  

Who knows but I do enjoy the process and I do enjoy doing these things on my domestic machine.  Now the pfaff above has a longer neck but like I said, I have done king size quilts with just the regular neck.

So what do you prefer to do?  Use a longarm?  Or do you find the comfort of your domestic machine?

I always thought free motion quilting was just that, you guiding the machine to get a desired effect.  I don't know if you will call it free motion when you have the machine doing all the work, the program ones?  I don't know...any thought?

“SPOTLIGHT ON NEUTRALS” BY Pat Wys…..and some finishes

Look what I won over at Silver Thimble Talk!! I was so thrilled to have an autographed book by Pat. I have always loved her work.

She also sent an I-tunes card……. Thanks sooooooooooooooooo much Pat!!!

What a fabulous book, I am just showing you two of my most favorite. You know I had to hone in on the applique.

In fact I was trying to decide if I had enough neutral fabrics to do this pattern (I was wondering if the bejeweled owned any neutrals). Even wondering

if I know what a neutral is. You all know I love bright and flashy. So I was going around looking in all the nooks and crannies….when a lightening bolt

hit me…… BARB…..YOU DO NOT NEED TO START ONE MORE PROJECT!!!! GET SOME OF YOUR PROJECTS DONE!!! THEN START A NEW ONE!!! STEP AWAY

FROM THE FABRICS…..BACK UP SLOWLY AND WALK OUT OF THE FABRIC ROOM.

So I did…but oh….it is so hard not to do this basket one….so if I cave, it will be a good cave.

Here is a view of the free motion hearts I did on the back of the patch one.

Here are the two quilts that my mother and Sister Beverly started (they made the tops and my mother started stitching in the ditch in the

princess one). I finished quilting both and today finished the binding…..I will have to confess, the binding has been on for over a week just

waiting for me to sew it to the back side. Why did I put it off? It only took about 15 minutes each at the most to machine sew it down….why do

I do this? Put things off?

THROW BACK QUILT

I call this quilt my throw back quilt....I practiced my free motion on it....I am actually pleased with how it turned out but it is far from perfect..... This is the small drunkard's path die for the Accuquilt Go cutter. I used the fabric scraps I purchased a few years ago.



I am trying to improve my hand/eye coordination....more control in my hands. So I went up and down the weave with the free motion foot....looks like I was drunk....but I hopefully, got better. I call that repeated pattern that is not quilted the weave.

So as I am quilting the fire alarm went off in the house. Scared the bejeebies out of me...I run through the house looking for fire, the only thing I can figure is I was running my machine so fast the alarm picked up on it....HA!!!!!