January IMQG 2012 challenge

It was a happy day a month or so ago when I stumbled upon The India Modern Quilt Guild. Wasted absolutely no time in signing up. Was the 26th member and was sooooo glad to find there were 25 other crazy people who found messing with fabric absolutely normal. Lack of supplies didn't seem to be too great an obstacle to these brave (and crazy!) women and I was in la-la land to be part of this group :-).

When Shruti, the founder-member of IMQG and a fab quilter-blogger proposed a monthly challenge, all of us jumped at it. Here was our chance to do what we loved to do, not all alone, not all by ourselves, but with a group of yes, thats right, with a group of brave and crazy women (56 at last count) who spoke the same language. True, its just a virtual group right now; true, the members are from varied backgrounds/ cultures/ countries, but what a sense of belonging! I haven't had this much fun since school! :-)

Anyways, the rules for the January challenge were simple and straighforward - Use only warm coloured solids. I added another straighforward but not-so-simple rule for myself - NO fabric buying. Determined to work only from my stash of scraps, I pulled out all warm coloured solids, threw in some neutrals and unsheathed the rotary cutter.

Didn't plan much, just cut out as many 5.5" and  3" squares as I could from the available scraps. One look at the no. of pieces and I knew I'd have to scale down the project from a double bed spread to single. Not sure what these blocks are called, but 3 days of piecing them and I'm ready to scale it down to a tablecloth!

So thats what I made. A tablecloth. Though it still beats me why I bothered to add the batting if it was going to be a tablecloth!

Started with a darker centre and progressed outwards with lighter colours..Browns, maroons, reds, hot pinks, oranges, yellows. Alternated light and dark neutrals.

Quilted straight lines through the block centres. Lesson learnt : Do NOT use variegated thread when quilting straight lines. Its no point. Unless the lines are very close together I guess.

Backed it with blinding red fabric. Yes, from my stash :-). And hand bound it. A first for me.

(Oh, I did further scale it down to an octagon coz I was a bit strapped for time, heh heh!)

So that's my entry for the Jan IMQG 2012 challenge. Best part? The leftovers :-)...

So waiting for the Feb challenge. Bring it on I say!

One last look?

Did I say one last look?

When did I say one last look?

:-). Happy quilting!

Shutting up and wiggling

I rather like Leah's Mantra - 'Shut up and quilt'. So without further ado, here's my second attempt at shutting up and wiggling..

(Here's my first if you want to take a look)

I wiggled up and I wiggled down and I wiggled all around. I found myself agreeing with Leah on...
-my machine feels better with the feed dogs up
-my hands really ARE better at certain curves than others and I need to practice getting my machine to match that
-I tend to get lost/stuck with random wiggling and prefer some method in the madness instead.

Now that I had wiggled a bit, I felt tempted to do the same with the leaf pattern that I was trying to learn as part of the 2012 FMQ challenge...

Leaves? Heart? Butts? Never mind :-). I think I'm beginning to get the hang of it. Now all that I need to do is perfect it :o).

Linking this up with Quilt Along Wednesdays on Leah's Free Motion Quilting Project. Loving it!!

Its a bird! Its a plane!..no, its FMQ!!

Now why isn't this....

...looking like THIS?....

Yup, more practice needed. But whats practice without some play? :-)

Now that looks kinda cool I think. Maybe this is how I'll make my final block for the 2012 FMQ challenge this month. (button on the right --->) Of course, AFTER I practice some :-).

Happy playing!

And I thought I was ready

Its Fresh Sewing Day at Lily's Quilts and unlike last time, this time I'm all ready and waiting.

Or so I think. Ha!  Now they tell me I can also showcase my entire year's finishes if I like!! Like? I would've loved to do that but I absolutely refuse to not use my mosaic of December's finishes! Yes, the one that I had already prepared a day in advance and was all ready with!! Anyways, here it is :-)..ta-da...

Ok, ok, that's a cheat mosaic. Its only actually two quilts. On the left is First among Equals and on the right, Bundle of Joy.

This year, I seem to have bitten off more than I can chew. Yet again. I have signed up for three (or was it four?) monthly challenges, so am hoping to learn a lot and have many more finishes for my 2012 Fresh Sewing Day mosaics :-).

Happy sewing!