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!

First among Equals

Thats what I'm calling this quilt designed by my 9 yr old.

Ok, thats weird quilt and thats a weird name for a quilt.

First, the name. In early January 2011, when I was charting out a design I quite fancied for a quilt for my sister (I was still a beginner, remember?), my lil one, then 8, whipped up a handmade calender for me with dates of the month on one side and a blank sheet on the facing side. For my quilt designs, she said. I decided then and there that I was going to try and make at least one quilt a month. Am happy to say that I have indeed managed to make a quilt a month. And as the year came to a close, I wanted to make her a special thankyou quilt for giving me that slight prod that I seemed to so badly need.

Now the twist. When your 9 yr old has 2 cousins the same age, you can't obviously make just your kid a quilt. No, you make three! And mine is the oldest by a month or two, so she's the 'First among Equals', see?

And now the design. Well, what d'ya expect?!..its designed by a 9 yr old!! I told her I was going to make her a bug jar quilt and she could choose what she wanted to put in it. And she said, cool..and chose the creepiest  fabric I had..so we have slime, and eyeballs, and berries and cupcakes, and rabbits and fish, and frogs and crabs, and bugs and butterflies..

..and circuit boards (she loves pulling things apart and trying to fix(?!) them)..

..and did I mention snorkelling frogs?..

And then she says, "Ma, put Didi (older sister) and Akka (again older sister, referring to her cousin) in a jar and throw away their hairbrushes and phones". How do you refuse a 9 yr old with puppy dog eyes??...

So the jars are done and now she wants a wolf..a howling wolf !! (I suspect Didi's 'Twilight' obsession may have had something to do with it). And a wolf howling at the moon from behind a shelf of jars makes perfect sense to a 9 yr old..what can you say?

She drew the wolf...

..and I drew the moon..

..both of which I appliqued with a silver metallic thread and quilted some echoing lines around the shapes.

The back had to be pieced. She likes it.

For the quilting, I just stuck to some good old quilting in the ditch around the jars and shelves and some free hand waves for the sky.

Didn't add binding. Just folded over the fabric from the front.

So thats my last quilt for 2011. I have learnt a lot along the way, quilting some, blogging some; and I hope to learn a lot more in 2012, especially some FMQ and some cool blogging tricks! Also hope to open an online store for quilts and supplies.

Wish you all a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year! Have a wonderful 2012!!

Love. Peace. Joy.
Tina

The secret and the elusive foot

I have stumbled upon the quilting world's best kept secret...Quilting is only a measly one-fifth part of QUILTING!! Who would've thought that to be a good quilter involves :
a) One-fifth Math. Yes, even if you are a very free-spirited crazy-quilting (no pun intended) kinda quilter.
b) One-fifth Photography. Yes, even if it is with a miserable 2 MP phone camera. You just HAVE to shoot your work (again no pun intended) as it progresses.
c) One-fifth Screen-Staring. Yes, even if its called blogging, blog-hopping, pinteresting, flick(r)ing (nope, no pun) ideas off the web.
d) One-fifth Ironing. Yes, very very pressing matter (No really, no pun intended at all).

So I guess if I just spruce up on that minor one-fifth bit that is quilting, I shall be well on my way to being a great quilter :-).

Well, the thing is, I'm basically a straight line walking foot kinda quilter. Not out of choice really, but because I don't yet know how to FMQ. Again, not out of choice, but because I couldn't get my hands on a compatible FMQ foot for my machine !! Most elusive, that foot. After days, nah, months of looking, I finally convinced a retailer that he HAD to get me these fancy feet. And he did! And I bought them all!! So here's my progress at FMQing:

Day 1: I just admire my feet and can't get enough of looking at them:

Day 2: I have no idea what I am doing, but boy, am I happy doing it !

Day 3: Ok, I plan a bit. The sandwich has no intention of listening to me though:

Day 4: I watch a few videos of Leah Day from The free motion quilting project and try again:

Ah well, hope floats. Some day I shall be good. For now I'm just glad I still wanna keep learning something new.

Happy learning, people! Hope you had/have a great Christmas!!

P.S.: My stumbling on the secret may not have had anything to do with the elusive foot.

Purple Parrots Eating Carrots

Its strange how sometimes you find yourself favouring certain colours repeatedly for a few days/weeks/months and how that morphs into a fondness for a totally different set of colours over a period of time. I seem to be going thru my Purple-phase...here's what my current WIPs look like..

..PURRRPLE !! My tastes are becoming very ROYALE, I guess! :-)

Have a Royal day !

P.S.: In case you're wondering about the title of the post, it was the title of a lovely, colourful and very entertaining book that my daughters had when they were little and for some reason 'purple parrots eating carrots' kept repeating in my head like a chant every time I'd be working on these WIPs! Like the time I was sitting for my class 12 boards, and the (very) irritating jingle 'Mango Frooty...fresh and juicy..' kept playing over and over and over and over in my head all thru the Math exam !

P.P.S.: Yeah, I made it thru the exam! With royal colours!!
 :-)

Hmm...

Two pieces of fabric and doodles on the back of a shopping list..

Where can it take me?

Hmm...