Free Motion Quilting - Heart Shaped Leaves

 

Month one of my practice for the January Free Motion Quilitng Project Challenge is completed (which is more than I can say for my kitchen renovation - but I am not bitter!)

The design for this month was heart-shaped leaves. The hard part about this particular design is turning the leaves in different directions. Being the perfectionist that I am, I wanted to evenly distribute the direction of the leaves.









I practiced drawing the heart shaped leaves first.












 

I then drew something of a  compass on my paper, to practice drawing the leaves at multiple angles, without moving the paper. After looking at the picture I just took of this drawing I see another problem....can you see it?  ALL of my practice drawing leaves faced inward to the center of the compass.


I think the fact that there is a point on the end of the leaf, makes it more difficult for me. I seemed to be obsessed with he direction of the point. Had it been a curved leaf on the bottom, the directional thing would have been easier....does that make any sense at all to you?








I then moved to my practice quilt sandwich. I used an old practice quilt, so that is why you see the gold stipple quilting in addition to the leaves.

Notice the burr in the thread....a speeding problem. I have to make myself slow down in this process.

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This is how the tension looked on the back to start with.....notice the thread "burr"

I think I finally got a decent tension, after some adjustments.....my bobbin thread is the non-gold stitching you see here.

Are you participating the Free Motion Quilting Challenge? You can join us at any point, and it is a great opportunity to challenge yourself with a new skill.