Small Plates Finish

I finished this quilt back in early February but never got around to posting about it.  February was a busy month and I hope to do more sewing this month.  I used straight line quilting along the block edges.  I tried to free motion quilt it, but stopped a few minutes in.  I think I need to start out with smaller projects, like place mats, before jumping into quilting something large.

It still needs to be washed, but since I have no recipient in mind I'm going to wait until it needs to be cleaned from all the cat hairs it's accumulated.

Free Motion Quilting

I took advantage of a recent Egyptian holiday to start experimenting with free motion quilting.  I've mostly used my walking foot for straight lines so far and tried out several designs with my new darning foot, which curiously enough is actually called a quilting foot by Bernina.  The only difference I can see between the darning foot #9 and quilting foot #29 is that the darning foot has a metal circle end and the quilting foot has a plastic rounded rectangular end.  I guess the plastic makes it easier to see the designs as they're being quilted.

bubbles

robot/wavy lines

This attempt to do boxy straight lines didn't work as well with the darning foot.  Perhaps it would be better with the walking foot.

meandering lines

loopy lines

I think the loopy lines needed more loops.  Otherwise it started to look like the meandering lines and sometimes the loops started to turn into swirls.  The meandering lines were definitely the easiest once I started to get the hang of it.

Eid Mubarak!

We have a four day weekend here in Egypt to celebrate the Eid at the end of Ramadan.  I had wanted to travel, but instead got assigned to work so I've been making progress on my quilt instead.  

All cut up!

The fabric I'm using is from a fat quarter bundle that Jeni put together for the Fat Quarter Shop.  I'm not the best at deciding whether fabric goes together so I tend to buy from collections and ready-made bundles.  Plus I don't have a huge fabric stash which limits my ability to improvise!  Choosing fabric for projects is definitely one of my areas for improvement. 

Sorted into blocks

Fenced In

I've decided to start out by making one of the beginner quilts from The Practical Guide to Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman.  Fenced In looks like exactly what I need to get back into the swing of quilting - the blocks are composed of 6 strips of fabric.  No worrying about matching points here!  I've also settled on making a total of 16 blocks instead of 36 like the pattern recommends.