Free Motion Mavericks - Week 379 - Ivy

Design ideas sometimes elude me. Why have I never thought of quilting ivy leaves before?  There is plenty of it growing up our front wall.  Perhaps because it is a nuisance of a plant that I am forever ripping out, so I have no affection for it.  However this week I was scratching around for ideas, went outside and brought in some ivy, and found they were nice and easy, so an instant favourite.  The first time I tried it out was on the black and red stripe, and I opted for a thread with plenty of blue in it to blend in with the strip of blue beneath it.  At first I was considering a thread to pick up the bright orangey red at the top right, which is much more vibrant in real life than in the photo, but thought the shades of red might end up fighting.

I did the same again with the yellow and ochre stripe, and used a thread with a dash of purple to go with the maroon and navy stripe.  It can be quite tricky quilting on the striped fabrics.  If the thread doesn't show up particularly well the quilting design is swamped by the stripe.  If I use a thread that contrasts too sharply with the stripes, then the effect is too heavy, so I often opt for threads with plenty of contrasting shades in them.

Here goes for Week 379:-

Many thanks to Frédérique for linking up with photos of her Friendship Day and showing examples of Japanese quilting.  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, Brazil and Sweden have taken part.  The 

first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.

Free Motion Mavericks - Week 377 - An Old Favourite

Everything about this little bit of quilting took me back a few years.  The red and maroon striped fabric is the same as a length I bought back in 2012, and also the quilting pattern, which I devised back in 2014; initially I called it fancy leaves, and later on I christened it Jacobean leaves when I made a video for Youtube.

I used the same design again on the yellow and grey stripe.  The zigzags show up well against the stripes, which I was pleased about.  Of all the fabrics in the quilt, I think this is the one that is the most difficult when it comes to deciding on a quilting design and a thread colour.  The design has to be sufficiently bold to stand out against the stripes, and not too complicated, otherwise it could all look too confusing. 

This variegated thread worked well.  I thought the sharp contrast in the colours - blue, green, yellow and maroon - might not be too easy on the eye, but as it turned out it was perfect, blending in not only with the yellow and grey stripes, but also with the scrappy strips.

This week I finally managed to get all the potatoes planted at the allotment, so over the next month or so I should have more time for quilting!

Update There's a bit of confusion this week - Andrée and I have both put up a linky.  I didn't see her post until after I had published this one.  I'll leave this linky up and see what happens.  This is the first time we have both managed to post the linky in the same week, which isn't bad considering how long we have been co-hosting.

Here goes for Week 377:-

Many thanks to Karin for linking up last time with her background texture improvisation.  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, Brazil and Sweden have taken part.  The 

first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.

He Is Risen

 

Progress At Last

Curls and waves were the best way to start after such a long break from quilting.  All the scrappy strips are now finished, so now I can get going with the interesting part.  I have started with the smallest blocks of colour, only 6 x 4 inches.  This way I can see how the colours of the threads match the fabrics.  All the threads are variegated, which makes it easier with shot cottons.  This rusty red fabric has a green weft, so I used a thread that has green and red in it for the quilting.

This grey stripe was tricky to find a match for.  The grey stripe is quite dominant, and I wanted to avoid it competing with the quilting for attention, so I used a thread with muted shades of grey, blue and pink, and kept the quilting fairly simple.

This is a surprisingly dark red, with black warp and bright red weft.  This is my darkest multicolour thread,  and I liked the way the green toned in with the block of green in the scrappy strip.

For this pinky red fabric, I tried out a thread with shades of red and blue, so the blue could chime in with the stripy blue strip beside it.  It was fun doing these serrated leaves.

When it came to quilting this black and red stripe, I was running out of ideas, so I tried a small scale version of the leaves in the black bryony design.  They turned out to be a great way of introducing hearts into a wedding quilt.

After the slow gentle start, I'm now ready to tackle the larger areas of quilting and am looking forward to it.

Free Motion Mavericks will be here next Thursday.  In the meantime, I hope everyone has a Happy Easter!