Thursday, March 28, 2013

Free Motion Failing...But Not Quitting!

I've been working on the SMQG's latest challenge off and on for the whole month.  At some fairly regular intervals, I've completely stalled.  It's all the bottom half's fault.  I had previously declared that this would be the project where I would finally break free of the straight lines and give free motion quilting a go.  There's a particular portion of my Asbury mini quilt that is just perfect for Angela Walter's wood grain quilting pattern.  Turns out that a few times of practicing didn't put much of a dent in improving my attempts at looking a bit better than my little one's scribblings...but I'm determined to finish!  I won't do a final reveal until it's completely finished, but let me share with you my free motion failings.

I've been quilting with my regular machine foot for a while - which means that I'm very used to having to stop every 30 seconds and pivot around a corner or move the fabric around while the needle is down.  In other words, I'm used to fiddling with the presser foot about a jillion times in an hour.  That proved to be a habit very, VERY hard to break.

I'd start out pretty good (well, good for me...totally out of control for a normal FM quilter) then pause and start up again.  Unbeknownst to the logical half of my brain, my hand must have gone for that darn presser foot and shot it up without snapping it back down, because this happened about 20 times:


The seam ripper was in high demand.  It was frustrating to say the least because it was my own stupid fault and I couldn't seem to break the habit.  I was finally forced to break out the big guns - my post-its.


Surprisingly, this tactic actually worked!  So while the first few lines of wood grain took me about a week (thanks mostly to a mixture of frustration and discouragement), the majority of that panel got finished in 30 minutes. 

I know that my free motion skills leave a LOT to be desired, but I'm pretty glad that prints cover a multitude of sins.  It's still intimidating, but I'm going to keep at it!

 
Linking up:

12 comments:

  1. I want to try woodgrain quilting! I think yours turned out pretty good. I am excited to see the finished product! I don't usually have a presser foot issue; I have panic-and-jerk-the-quilt-too-fast issues. Thank you for posting about this. I have also decided I'm not going to let this FMQ thing beat me.

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  2. Thank you for the post. I've not done FMQ but am keeping a log of what people have learned when starting out. I'm hoping not to repeat other's mistakes.
    Presser foot down! Check

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  3. WOW, what an improvement!!! FMQ really just takes lots and lots of practice but at least you've got awesome problem solving skills;-)

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  4. Looking good! Keep at it! You can do it! I look forward to seeing your finished piece at the meeting.

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  5. Your woodgrain quilting looks really good for your first time! Good thinking to help yourself break a habit. Keep at it!

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  6. You're right about prints covering a multitude of sins--I think we see our imperfections on plain old quilt sandwiches, and then we get nervous about ruining our lovely quilts. But in the grand scheme of the quilt, little bobbles or places where we get, uh, a bit out of control don't show up much at all, thank goodness!

    And good thinking with the post it. :)

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  7. You are being too hard on yourself. Stick with simple patterns. Use prints to hide if you want to. I also use matching thread, a lot. But I'm moved from being a beginner to early intermediate with just getting it done.

    The funny thing is that when I saw a non-quilter looking at the first real project that I'd done, I realized that I was being too hard on me too.

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  8. Old habits are hard to break. Your had a wonderful solution to that :-).
    When I had just started quilting I noticed that if I used exactly the same thread on my top and bobbin most of the thread issue went away(don't even mix up the colors from same weight/brand threads). On top of that pair the right needle size with the thread weight to make FMQ more enjoyable. Like 50wt with 80/20 or 40wt with 90/14.

    You're already making great strides. Keep practicing, it does get better and better by the day.

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  9. On the bright side, the final product turned out great. It's not like we're all professional quilt judges critiquing your work. I think it turned out great. Keep practicing and you'll get it down.

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  10. Hey, the ones on the real piece are looking good! Don't give up - at some point your body will suddenly "get it" and relax into FMQ work. And boy, don't I know about that lever reflex!!! :D

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  11. Your final picture is looking great! Congrats. I think you, maybe, were just breaking through the pain barrier.Ypu're a big inspiration to me to get acquainted with my fmq foot :)

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  12. It looks good to me. I use post-its all the time.

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