WiP Wednesday: FMQing Extravaganza!

I got my free-motion quilting foot in the mail last week and couldn't wait to try it out!  I've never even attempted something like this before (I only once machine quilted but it was straight lines with a regular foot) so I was super excited.  I tried a few different techniques with varying degrees of success.  I know I need A LOT more work on shapes (like flowers).  I'm pretty great at meandering, my favorite, and I need a walking foot for straight line quilting.  I had four extra blocks from the Skill Builder Sampler and made a bunch of 12" minis for my kids toys.

Since this is certainly a work in progress I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced where Kati, who blogs at From the Blue Chair, is the guest blogger this week.  I'm loving all her projects and she gave a great advice post on Monday for the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop at Plum and June.

 Here's my fun attempts at free-motion quilting...

Sadly this didn't come out like I pictured in my head.   In my head the flowers were all cute and even mirroring the petals in the block.  In reality they were all kind of lopsided and odd shaped but it was fun anyway.  I learned that I can't go from shape to shape without cutting my thread.  I have an open front foot and the thread kept getting caught.  Many of my flowers are crooked because the thread got caught on the foot and yanked it over.

Here's the back side of that same one.  You can see the flowers better here how they aren't the same.  You can also see a few times where my thread got caught and bunched.  Many of those were a result of getting caught up in the foot.  The straight lines are straight-ish which makes me happy but I think a walking foot would be better for this.

I did this really nifty loopy lines for this one and I loved it!  After two passes I really had it down and loved how easy it was and how fun they came out.  I will be doing this one again!  I used the middle print for the back and you can't see the quilting at all, even in person, so I didn't post a picture of that one.

I adore this block!  It's the green mountain star block and it's one of my favorites from the sampler.  I didn't want the quilting to distract from the block so I stitched in the ditch around every blue shape.  You can see it better on the back side...

Here's the back of the Green Mountain Star.  LOVE!  I don't think the free motion foot was the right choice for this block but I love it anyway.  It looks so fun even if the lines are a bit shaky.

This is the Beacon Light block from the sampler.  I had a really hard time making this one because this style was new to me and it didn't come out square at all!  Anyway, I decided to try meandering with this one and had so much fun with it!  You can see it in the middle a bit but it's much better on the back side...

Look at that fancy meander!  I'm so happy with it!  I love how fast, easy, and stress-free this style was!  I will be doing this again.

I tired out this nifty trick I saw on Pinterest and LOVED it!  My template didn't print with seam allowances.  They were too light to see, so I taped two pencils together to add seam allowances to the templates.  See the full post of instructions and demo here.

My last WiP project pictured is my mom's Papillon quilt.  I've done half the blocks which are pinwheels and I have half remaining which are a star block.  I'm so happy to be done with these as I had to make then trim down each HST block.

Also this week I got a 1/4" foot which I'm excited to get piecing with and a walking foot, which I can't wait to use.  I'm really getting into quilting my own things!

I have a lot of other things I made progress on this week but my hubby accidentally took the camera to work with him and thus I don't have pictures.  Here's the run down...

- Crochet Fusion Blanket - I have half the charms sewn together and I hope get the rest of them sewn together this week and then the top stitching done as well.
- Preemie Crochet Hats - I made five more this week.  I've been slowing down on these because I've been crazily working on quilting.

That's about it for this week.  Thanks for stopping by!