Free Motion Mavericks - Week 269 - Spot The Difference

Sorry for the shocking photo - for some reason my camera can't cope with the contrast between the colours of the embroidery and the dark navy background.

The fabric is washed, and despite having a label which said dry clean only, I disobeyed and washed it in the washing machine, as I always have done.  It is a wool and synthetic mixture, and dries incredibly quickly and without creasing.

The zigzag ribbon took me by surprise.  The line that went  straight across, covering the horizontal seam, was loosely hand-stitched, and I unpicked it in a trice.  The ribbon around the large paisley shape on left was a different matter altogether.  It was secured with a double line of machine stitching, one of which was of tiny stitches, suggesting that the work wasn't feeding through the machine properly.  Rather than try and pull all the thread out and damage the fabric, I left some of it in.  I shall have to find a way to disguise those loose threads, and pretend I intended them to be part of the design all along.

Also scattered here and there were tiny glass beads.  It was tempting to leave them as they were, but if this fabric is going to be made into a cushion cover, it will get too much wear and tear, and beads will end up dropping off. Some were absolutely minute, highlighting the end of the pretty curved tendrils.  Then there were clusters of slightly larger beads at the centre of the yellow ribbon flowers.  They were less fiddly to remove.  The flowers look a little bare without them, so I shall have to find a way to emphasise the centres again.

Let's hope I have got the most irritating job out of the way at the beginning of this project...

Here goes for week 269:-

Many thanks to Gail for posting her finished quilt and video! If you haven't seen her blog post yet, nip over now and see more.

If you have no free motion quilting to show, feel free to link up and show any project you like.  Here are the usual rules, but feel free to ignore them.  To keep the original emphasis, however, preference will be given to free motion quilting when featuring projects from the previous week.

If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.

Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.

Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-

1.  Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.

2.  Link back to this post in your own post.

3.  Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.

4.  The link up will remain open for five days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Tuesday.

So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France, Macau, Russia, Ireland and Brazil have taken part.  The first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.