January Free Motion Quilting Challenge

Thanks to all of you who wished me well on my little nose procedure this morning.  I'm happy to say that it was not as bad as the first time around.  The little spot in question was much smaller and I caught it much earlier.  That meant it didn't take as long, and as far as I can tell this early on, it doesn't look as if there is as much swelling.  It is still rather uncomfortable, however.  So far, I'm only using Tylenol, but I'm thinking seriously about going for something stronger.  I want to sew, however, and so I'm trying to keep my wits about me.  It wouldn't do for me to be sewing over my fingers or cutting myself, now would it?

Which brings me to this:

I'll admit to putting this off a little.  Sometimes when I'm doing something that I anticipate will be challenging, I have to work my spirit into it.  I have two doll quilts that need quilting, however, and I want to work on those too.  It's a bit of an operation to set up my sewing machine for free motion quilting, and so I wanted to follow the FMQ Challenge piece with a doll quilt.  And then another doll quilt after that.  It saves me from setting up and breaking the whole thing down over and over again. 

My machine is a Bernina 440QE, which I love.  It has the Bernina Stitch Regulator.  I think it's helpful, although I know some people would disagree.  It's a personal preference, I think.  I happen to prefer it.  Also, I sprung for the extension table for my machine so that I would have a nice level sewing surface.  Ordinarily, my machine sits on a desktop, and so I don't have much area to work with if I don't use the extension table.  Also, I absolutely love the Queen Supreme Slider.  I find it very helpful, and again, some people think the Supreme Slider is useless.  I'm not making any recommendations here.  I'm just telling you what works best for me.

So how did I do?

Not too bad, I think.  There were a few places where I painted myself into a corner.  Also, I didn't leave myself enough room to travel . . . or sometimes I felt I was having to travel too far.  A few of my leaves aren't exactly heart-shaped, but it's not too bad. 

I appreciated the video tutorial because I noticed that she paused each time she was ready to start a new leaf.  When I'm quilting, I tend to think I should keep moving.  After seeing the tutorial, I realized it was perfectly okay to stop and get my bearings before continuing.  This isn't something I'd given much thought.  It was just something I noticed while watching her.

So now I'm off to start on my doll quilts.  I have some ideas how I want to quilt them, but I'll need to get in a practice run first.  Also, I have to make my quilt sandwiches, which I've come to believe is the one part of quilting that I really despise.  Once that part is done, I can stitch to my heart's content.  My heart isn't particularly content while I'm trying to get the fabric smoothed out over the batting both top and bottom.