Practicing Feathers

I know that practice, practice, practice is what is going to improve my quilting. I really love the look of feathers, so I have been watching videos, reading books and studying pictures. And I have been practicing with my sit-down long arm. 

I am a LONG way from perfection, but I now can recognize my efforts as resembling feathers. I am also learning to echo quilt around them. I am trying to find a few minutes every day to sit down at my machine and practice on my muslin sandwich. 

My goal is to someday be able to do beautiful feathers in the border of a quilt. It may be a few more months, or even a year, before I get there~but I am hoping with enough practice it will finally happen. 

Happy Quilting!

A Little Longarm Practice

When I first bought my HQ Sweet Sixteen last year I got lots of advice from people on how to hone my quilting skills. The one thing that everyone told me was "practice, practice, practice." I have taken that advice to heart and have begun quilting my UFO stash. I am now in the mindset that "better finished than perfect" is true. If I wait until I am turning out show quality quilts to finish the mountain of quilt tops I have amassed, then I will never get them done. I am gaining confidence with practice and am feeling better about each project that is completed.

I was also told that "cheater panels" make great practice pieces. You can donate them to a local charity or use them for pet beds if you are not thrilled with your results. So, with that in mind, I bought this printed flannel fabric at Jo-Ann's and layered it with a pink stripe. Yesterday I sat down to do a little practice and I finished this small quilt (40" X 53"). I am going to keep it because I have looked around my house and noticed that I don't have any smaller quilts for my granddaughters to snuggle under when they are visiting. 

My quilting is getting better and I am pleased with my end results.

Happy Quilting!

Those Three Little Words.....

I love so many things about quilting.  I love shopping for fabric! I mean, I LOVE shopping for fabric.  I love buying and reading quilt books and patterns and magazines. I love planning out my next quilt~picking the pattern and selecting the fabrics.  I love cutting all the pieces and stacking them, ready for stitching. I love making each block and adding it to my design wall and seeing the quilt evolve from my mind's eye to fruition.  Sewing all the blocks into rows, adding sashing and borders and finally having a finished top~it is all so satisfying to me.  The hum of my sewing machine as I feed the fabric through is as soothing to my soul as my yoga classes are.  

Then all the fun comes to a screeching halt!! And I read those three little words that are at the end of every pattern~quilt as desired! I feel a cold shiver creeping up my spine.  Quilt as desired?  What if I have no desire?  What if what I desire is going to look horrible? What if I ruin my beautiful quilt top?  Oh, I hate those three little words!

I have heard that some quilt tops actually "speak" to their owners. Women will say that this quilt just cried out to be quilted in a Baptist Fan pattern or that this quilt just says "feathers in the border".  My quilts have never said a word to me! They just lay there mocking me. They don't speak~but I swear I have heard them laughing at me. 

This is the reason that I have over a dozen quilt tops hanging in my closet.  I visit them there every now and then and still none of them has said a word to me~not even, "Hey, it's dark in here. When are you ever going to finish me?" I have come to the conclusion that I am fooling myself when I say I am a quilter.  I think I should just tell people that I am a "piecer".  

I refuse to be beaten, so, I have challenged myself.  First I bought a LOT of books on quilting.  I mean the kind of books that discuss the mechanics of machine quilting-pulling your bobbin thread to the top when you begin, taking several stitches in place to make a knot, meandering vs. stippling.  Next I moved to books that have patterns in them.  They show you how to quilt in a continuous pattern in your blocks or border.  I have watched videos online where you take clear vinyl and place it on your top and draw the pattern you want to quilt on it. You can audition lots of patterns that way and decide what will showcase your quilt. I even bought a spiral notebook to doodle and "train my brain". All of this and still I can't do it! I know what I am supposed to do-I just can't do it! It's a mental thing. 

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I purchased a sit-down long arm machine. If I am going to be a serious quilter I have to have the right equipment, right?  Maybe my whole problem is trying to get that big quilt sandwich under my regular machine.  Ha! Still no luck.  Every time I sit down to quilt I get a huge pit (think Grand Canyon) in my stomach and I think to myself "here goes the ruination of a perfectly good quilt top".  

I am not trying to quilt a quilt that will win a ribbon at Houston or Paducah quilt shows.  I know that practice makes perfect and so I have decided that I need to not be so hard on myself.  I have to remember that the quilts I am making are for my family and friends and that they love them, imperfections and all. They don't care if all of my stitches are the same length or if I quilted myself into a corner and could not get out without crossing over another line of stitching. They just see all the time and love I put into making that quilt for them. They feel the quilted hugs I have for them every time they cuddle up with it and maybe they wrap it just a little tighter. After all, isn't that what quilting is all about?