Another new challenge

Well, here I go again. Challenging myself. Wow. I better stop doing this. Just had to one more time (I keep telling myself). I think this is a really valuable challenge for anyone who wants to learn free motion quilting or just to be forced to sit down and practice. 

When I first tried free motion, everyone was doing it. And doing it very well. Me. Well, I just kept breaking needles. I couldn't get the hang of it. I'd sew about an inch or so, and bam. . . a broken needle. I'd try again, modifying my foot, hand and eye coordination, but nope. . . bam. . . another broken needle to add to the growing collection. So what would a normal red blooded quilter do? Yep, I gave up. 

Then I started trying again, but not too often. It was too depressing and frustrating. But, a few years into to it, I had an epiphany. It came with some help from a few wonderful gals and I was off and running. 

So when the notice of this challenge popped up in my email, I was all over it. I can sharpen my skills for sure. And it's just one per month. That's twelve folks! Not like my other challenge. That is one per week! And let's not even mention the self imposed challenges I have going on. So this should be a breeze.

 

The first tutorial is by Frances Moore. Here is my entry. I know that everyone doing this challenge will be showing samples of perfection. Not me. It is not important to me that it be perfect, but that I experiment with the possibilities of how to use the pattern given. So you will see that starting on the left, the leaves look plain and normal as shown in the tutorial. I then transitioned to the alternate sample which was the circle inside the leaf. I just wanted to fill the 'page' with leaves and see how well I could back myself into or out of a corner. I think I did ok.

This challenge is open to anyone. To learn more or sign up here is the link:

http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/p/free-motion-quilt-challenge.html