I had a case of “Boo-Humbug!” on Halloween. I was going to be the only one at home, and I just wasn’t up for answering the door 100+ times to the cold blowing rain. Yes, that many times, truly – our neighborhood is a Halloween Destination.
For the record, the doorbell rang on our dark and apparently empty house 6 times, and 4 more times people were on our pitch-black porch before deciding no one was home.
I decided instead to hide out in my sewing room which has no streetside windows :) and practice my free motion quilting. I need a lot of practice!
I had these potholders cut out from my stash of coffee-theme fabrics and decided to practice on those. You get to share this with me, because this is part of my week’s creative effort!
After adjusting my machine from Disney dresses and suit vest alteration sewing to FMQ settings, needle, and thread I was off and running.
The top tan print was how I started — these long loopy lines are how I want to quilt a lot of my Christmas Wallhangings. Then I decided to try the loops around the stacked cups print. Umm… trickier. Then I got far too overconfident and went for some spirals, trying to follow the steam swirls in the green print. Good thing it’s a utility piece :)
Then I got lazy and went for the mug-rug format — no future binding needed!
I did learn a few specific things during this session:
1) I still need a lot more practice LOL I can’t quite think far enough ahead of the needle yet!
2) Working near the edge of the fabric is hard – for the second mug rug I cut the inner fabric layers much larger to start with. Having that much extra fabric to anchor my hands on helped so much!
3) Don’t forget to put on your Machingers gloves! Google them!
4) Don’t forget to adjust the top thread tension when moving between regular sewing (the zig-zag) and FMQ (which needs looser tension.)
5) The Fons & Porter Rag Quilt snips I bought are worth their weight in gold! The leverage makes it so easy to snip through thick layers without exhausting your hands!
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The top three items are filled with Insul-Bright which is a mylar layer needle-punched with polyester batting on both sides – great insulation! They will get binding on them soon (-ish).
The two mug rugs, which will look all rag-quilty around the edges after laundering, are filled with 2 layers of pre-washed light green cotton flannel. Flannel gives extra fluff to the rag edges! And it’s green :) By the way, that’s intentionally scribbly looking outlining on the mug rug center. Honest!
Happy November from my current location of Ocean Shores, WA!
Gail
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