Sunday, February 19, 2012

Free Motion

I received a free motion quilting foot for Christmas and this weekend I finally carved out enough time to sit down and play with it. I'm on top of things like that. We still need to decorate our gingerbread house too. No joke, the kit is still sitting on the shelf. Procrastination makes Christmas last all year long!

free motion quilting practice 1

At first, I just tried to wing the free motion thing. I wasn't getting great results so I did a little googling. The best advice I found from Leah Day's site-- DON'T drop your feed dogs. That's contrary to everything else I've ever read about free motion, but it definitely helped me get better stitches. If you set your stitch length to zero the feed dogs don't try to pull the fabric through, but they're still there with a bit of grip underneath. It made me feel like the fabric wasn't jumping around quite so willy-nilly on me.

free motion quilting practice 2

I still need lots and lots of practice. And who knows how long it will take before I have the guts to use it on an actual quilt, but for now using up all my "ugly" fabric for practice is pretty fun!

free motion quilting practice 3

2 comments:

  1. Looking good, Jenny! Isn't it cool to be able to write your name with thread?!? You are so right that practice is the key. A little bit everyday and you'll be FMQ on your quilts in no time. I tell myself the same thing about me and EQ7!

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  2. Hi Jenny. I came over after I saw your name on Nicole's blog and laughed when I saw your FMQ post - that is just what I have done for the first time ever today. My efforts look like a dog's dinner - I'm going to try not dropping the feed dogs as you/Leah suggest.

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