Making Progress

This week has been quite productive in my sewing room. 

First:  Before and after of my Wisteria challenge piece. 

Not finished, but I am pleased with where I am. 

 

 

Second: 

Top picture has all the pieces pinned to the design wall, but nothing was sewn together.

Then I have larger pieces and many smaller ones stitched in place on top of a batting and backing. 

Last two pictures are my thread sketching and free motion quilting, both of which need improvement. 

 

 

 

 

Third: I started working on my Princess piece. 

The top picture shows the portrait piece I made during Lola Jenkins workshop. 

 

 

In the picture above, I have placed two different blacks along the sides. The one on the left has very small gold dots. The one on the right has black dots and a more mottled background. I am thinking about using one or both as borders, if I keep it at the present size. 

Perseverance Paid Off

 

Yesterday, before and after Yoga class, I was in the sewing room. I decided that I should be able to figure out why my machine wouldn't do the free motion quilting and thread sketching that it was capable of. I started by going back to the beginning,,,

First I set my machine up as though I was going to be piecing a block together. This meant changing the foot, lifting the feed dogs, changing out the thread, and removing my Supreme Slider. I even changed the needle to a different brand entirely. And as you might guess, I was back into sewing nice even stitches and straight lines without any thread shredding, skipped stitches, or broken needles!

Then I proceeded to change one thing at a time. In the end I was using a different free motion foot and a different brand of needle. Things looked like they were going to move along as desired. And they did!

I am very unskilled in FMQ. Same is true for my thread painting. I just know that I enjoy the process and that I am making this for myself! I only finished off the center printed block, but I'm happy with it. 

 

My background fills will get better as I invest time into this process. I don't have a stitch regulator on my machine so stitches to the inch is variable, which doesn't bother me at all. And the darning foot that I ended up using was a closed toe and I had been using an open toe previously. 

I also noticed that the amount of stitching has drawn the piece up a bit. I was able to press it flat, but I know it will want to 'shrink' back. So, I will be doing a fair amount of stitching on this piece, hand and machine, before I consider it done. This is where I wish I had a machine designated to this work, and another one for piecing. I picked up an old Singer awhile back. It weighs a ton. I need to put it into service and see how it performs. Maybe it can become one of the designated machines. 

My favorite section, so far, has to be the tree roots I put into this area.

 

I am so glad that God has given me the patience to keep trying to figure things out. 

I was ready to take the machine in for a check up, when all it needed was a change up!

God has certainly blessed me,

Luann

Burgundy and Bronze, oh my!

 

I am really liking the bronze thread on top of the burgundy in this fabric book page. 

I will be using these two colors together in some fall gift items. 

Let's Create Today,

Luann