Happy Halloween: a horror story of FMQ (and a link party)

Horror story about my experience with free motion quilting (FMQ)...

The Ongoing Project List:

1. SYS2015 future projects - waiting for Oct project
2. Block Swap Adventure - waiting for Oct project
3. Charity quilts - second quilt done! (see below)
4. Happy Halloween wall hanging - started quilting, horror story! (see below)
   This is my project for "A Lovely Year of Finishes" (Oct)
5. Zipper pouches - paused for a while
6. Americana QAL - waiting for Oct project
7. Applique pictures - new project, done designing

The EverythingElse List:

1. the SK project - no progress
2. the 31000 Xs project - no progress
3. Spirit cross stitch project - no progress
4. Mirror Mirror Afghan - no progress
5. the Ender project - no progress
6. Embroidery calendar - no progress
7. Project of Doom 2015 @ Fandom in Stitches - paused for a while
8. Alice in Wonderland quilt - no progress
9. As You Wish -  no progress
10. Crazy optical illusion - no progress
11. Memory quilt 2 - no progress
12. B quilt - no progress

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Jennifer put a call for designers to design a Halloween fandom piece and I couldn't pass on that!
I was so inspired that in a day I designed the block and tested it!

Peanuts in a Pumpkin

One patterns, two different characters! Just switching the color and the embroidery details!

More Fandom/Halloween patterns will be shared on Oct 31st on Fandom in Stitches, so make sure to stop by and see many new cool designs!!

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Happy Halloween wall hanging. This is my project for "A Lovely Year of Finishes" (Oct).
I finished the last block

Pattern by Janeen (with colors changed to get a calico look)

Pumpkin is posing next to her fabric portrait :)

Until here, everything was fine, 

Actually it was great, because I completed all the blocks and I could go on and assemble the top. That went pretty smoothly too (even if I calculated the overall size wrong and I had to rearrange a little bit my blocks from the original plans).

And then the horror begins...
Since I wanted to get more practice on FMQ (I started with the quilt below and went pretty well) I decided to use this piece to keep practicing! Since it's a wall hanging for us and doesn't have to be perfect after all...

As you can see in the picture, there are a ton of heavily PP blocks with bulky seams everywhere... I didn't think that would be such a big problem if I go slowly and try to go around those areas... well... I was wrong :(

First of all I couldn't really keep a consistent speed because the foot keep getting stuck (even if I adjusted its height). This created super small stitches and super long ones... not pretty... but not the worst part either. Every 10 minutes (max) I broke a needle!! HORROR... I tried all possible things to avoid that: change direction, change speed, be more careful on where exactly I stitch, change the size of the needle... nothing made a difference :( I quilted maybe half of the piece and broke 6-7 needles. I had to stop because now I only have 2 needles in the house and I cannot afford to break another one before buying more needles!
On the good side, this forced me to change my needle, which is something I don't do quite often normally ;)

Oh well... I guess I learned the hard way why people like to quilt negative spaces or simply pieced tops! The quilting went pretty smoothly in ares where just a charm of fabric was there...
Oh well, I will practice more FMQ on my charity quilts, where I have big panels and simple piecing! I like the overall process as it's much faster than using my walking foot.

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And last, but not least, I want to remind you that I am working on charity quilts,
and I would love your help!! 

Quilts are for a quilt drive to help the kids in the DC General Homeless Shelter. 

And you can help me by donating orphan blocks, partial blocks, or fabric (scraps, strips, leftover, uglies, whatever). 

If you are willing to mail them to me, I could use them to make more quilts for these kids!!! 

If you are up for a loving donation, please send me an email at tweloq[_at_]gmail[dot_com] or leave a comment here with your email address so I could give you my mailing address. I promise that your donation will be used to make some kids happy and feel more loved!! 

I am happy to report that I made some blocks to accompany the stars blocks donated few weeks ago! 

Star blocks donated by Dolores and 

my first try at cathedral windows by Jean (Missouri Star Quilt Co)

I already designed the rest of this quilt so we may have another baby quilt top done soon!

And another finish was added to the pile!

Size: 40'' x 40''

The first quilt I ever FMQ on!!

This was my success story in FMQ! I did meander on the bargello sections and spirals in the white corner. It turned out pretty consistent and nice for my first attempt!

The success is mainly because of the use of the best trick I read on the internet: a Teflon cookie sheet! :)

I was thinking to buy those "supreme sliders" and similar to cover my extension table and make it easy to FMQ. Reading the reviews on Amazon I realized that while people loved them, they were "complaining" about the fact that it was not fitting properly their machine and that they had to tape it down. Then one comment said something like "it's just those cheap reusable cookie sheet you get for few dollars" so I said "well... if it's just like that, why don't I buy those, cut it and tape it to my extension table and see how it goes?!?". I did that and absolutely love it! I could put the hole exactly where I wanted it, cut it to size and tape it to be stable. The good thing is that it's taped to the extension table and always ready to go, easy and fast setup for FMQ!

I tried to FMQ with my feed dog down, but I heard that it may cause issues with the stitch quality. So I decided to keep them up, even if my machine doesn't have the option of 0 stitch length. The solution was simple: just add some layers of cookie sheet/tape on the back to cover the mat and protect it from getting eaten up by the feed dog! Of course this is not a permanent solution, but it serves the purpose and since the hole is easy accessible from the back of the extension table, changing the broken tape is not a big deal! Using this method I got more consistent stitching and I was having fun FMQ (at least before the horror story on the other piece ;) )

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How about you? What are YOU up to?

Link it here and share it with me!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Last things from 2014 (and linky party)

And we are back with our weekly linky party (MOP Monday) for 2015!

I made a list of projects that I plan to tackle this year, but today let me share few blocks that I have been working on during these last couple of weeks. 

Two of my blocks have been tested by two talented ladies.

Josephine included my Mickey and Minnie block in a wonderful set of quilts for very lucky kids!!

This is her version of the block.

The pattern is available in my MickeyM, DonaldD, Alice page

Bea (from beaquilter.com) tested one of my Peanuts block (Franklin) and she is also hosting an entire year of fun with my Peanuts blocks! Join her every 10th of the month for some community BOM fun!!

Franklin's pattern is now available in my free patterns page.

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And finally, during the holidays, no machine sewing time meant embroidery time!

So not one, not two but three new blocks for my SK project have been added to my collection!

-- It --

-- Misery --

-- Revival --

You can find them all in my The SK Project page.

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Now what are YOU going to link?

An InLinkz Link-up

And the winner is...

ME!! :)

No, I am not going to give myself the prize for my own giveaway, LOL :)
The winner for that is announced at the end of this post... but since we are talking about winners, I feel like a winner when I have the chance to share with you some amazing blocks done by other members of the quilting community using my patterns!
So here is a little show off and a new pattern tested and released!

Kysaundra finished the Sword in the Stone top!! Isn't it wonderful!!??!! so perfectly matching all the colors of the cartoon!! and soon she is going to share with me the quilted finished work so I will share it here with all of you because I am very very excited about this quilt!!! :)

And here a great complete wall hanging by Vivian: isn't it super cute?? Looove it!!

And finally more blocks (some that I shared already, some are new).

Great job ladies!!!! :)

(by Audrey)	(by KellyLea)
(by Diane K.)	(by Inez)

And here is a new pattern (tested)

Tested by Inez, you can find the pattern on my Quilt&StitchAlong page

And since I received some requests for additional Snoopy characters, here they are, ready to be tested!!
They are available on the Untested patterns page

And now... the winner of the MOP Monday, 100 squares giveaway is...

Kathy @ Qreative Quilts!! 

I guess that karma wanted to return the favor (I won one of her giveaway in the past ;) )
Congratulation Kathy!! Your stack of squares will be on its way to you very soon!!
And thanks again to all the people that reach out to me to show that my patterns are used by someone other than myself!!!

Snoopy and Friends

And finally the group of friends is complete!

The last addition to the group are Snoopy and Woodstock

All the patterns are now available in the Free Patterns section.

And now that the group is complete, I can share with you the entire wall hanging:

Each character has his/her own quote (in Italian...)... I will quilt the cartoon bubbles as soon as I get more familiar with free motion quilting :) 

And if you try any of the blocks, please leave me a comment below, or send me a picture of the block or publish the block on the FiS Flickr Group (or all of them :) ). I would love to see them!!

Surrounded by ... Linus Van Pelt

This week I almost forgot to post my progress on the Star Surround QAL! But here they are

The Block Surround.

I put the surrounds next to the star but I didn't sew them together... that's next week task I assume :)

The directional prints is kind of weird somewhere but I didn't want to fix that :) it's a scrappy quilt after all... and also the fabric in the surround is somewhere mixed up... but I like the final effect anyway!

As last week I can say that I am pretty happy about the points... they are not all super-perfect, but many of them are and the other are pretty close I think.

And as usual, let me introduce a new member of the Peanuts/Snoopy family: Linus Van Pelt

I am so excited that the next block of the Peanuts series will be the last... and then I will share with you the final layout of my wall hanging and all the patterns!!

Star between the stars: Sally Brown

And the task for another week of the Star Surround QAL is done!

The Center Stars.

And this time no particular life lessons... everything went smoothly... actually I did the first star alone and then the other three chain stitching them all together... this time the "assembly line" process worked perfectly... maybe because Melissa in her tutorial said that she does not sew more than one center at the time... so since I always have to do something in the opposite way, my brain worked perfectly doing that this time... I don't know... I don't understand my brain either ;)

I am pretty happy about the point... they are not all super-perfect, but many of them are and the other are pretty close I think.

And as usual, let me introduce a new member of the Peanuts/Snoopy family: Sally Brown

And let me remind you about my "cry for help" :) (click the button for details)

Flying with Charlie Brown (and more life lessons)

And the task for another week of the Star Surround QAL is done!

Flying geese.

And again these are the lessons I learned from this task:

1. lesson from last week: between the different steps of the tutorial do something else :) this pushes me to have good progress also on my Peanuts/Snoopy wall hanging (!!!) so let me introduce you Charlie Brown

The pattern will be available here as soon as his friends are ready to join the party :)

2. lesson from last week: try the steps with one unit first. Which worked perfectly! I made my first 4 flying geese in a very fast and efficient way... so I got carried away by the thought "maybe I can follow the assembly line process"... and a voice in my head screamed "noooooo, don't do it, go on with this approach"... did I listen to that voice??!?... obviously no... I took 4 big squares, aligned the small squares, pinned and sew all of them... great... then I cut the them apart, I cut the diagonal line and HORROR OF HORRORS, I realized that I sew the small squares on the wrong side of the big squares!... I looked at the chain of the others squares and 3 of them were wrong in the same way!! only 1 of them was ok... and I already cut one apart!!

Have you ever had one of those moments when you want to bang your head against the wall because you didn't listen to yourself?? I had one of those... because now I had to rip 6 longs seams and two of them on triangles pieces that I had to reassemble in the right way later on...

Luckily I remembered this wonderful block

http://suleon.blogspot.de/2012/03/sew-out-loud-qal-keep-calm-block.html

I took a deep breath, I ate a small piece of chocolate and I had all those "fast" seams undone :( luckily the voice in my head was not completely ignored, and I chain-pieced only 4 squares... it could have been much worse :)

So the lesson for this week is: listen to yourself! your instinct is (most of the time) right :)


And now, I need your help!! Please!!

I just recently found some selvage blocks that I would really love to make... and I realized that I have very few nice selvage in my stash :( so I thought to organize a "Selvage for Block swap".

These are the rules:
1. if you have some nice selvage pieces and you are willing to send them to me, just drop me an email at tweloq at gmail dot com (the parts of the selvages I am looking for are the parts with the text and the ones with the circles with the colors used in the fabric... also the colorful parts of the selvage without text are ok, but I am trying to keep the look of my block uniform :) and if there is at least 1/4 of the fabric above the strip of selvage itself that would be even better... but if not, that's fine too :) )
2. in exchange for the selvage you send me, I can send you a finished block! any block you want (pretty much) :) you can choose one of my blocks, any of the Fandom in Stitches blocks, or even some more classic blocks (max size 12 inches)... I am more comfortable in doing paper piecing blocks, but I am willing to try more traditional ones too :)
3. we can agree on the block/fabric choice/etc. by email... and as soon as I receive the selvages I will make and send you the block.

I hope many of you will help me realizing my dream of a selvage quilt :) :)


Just a concluding remark about the Flying geese task: the no-waste-method is pretty quick and easy but it does not allow you to trim and straighten the final block... which means that some of mine look kind of wonky... not too much, I hope... I think some of my points will not match perfectly, but I guess it's fine. And another thing is that (as you can see in the lower left corner of my picture above) directional fabric get cut half with horizontal and half with vertical orientation... I don't know if I messed up something with the instructions but I couldn't figure out a way to do them all one way... not that it matters for my scrappy/whimsical design... but it's good to keep that in mind for my future designs (if I want to obtain a specific effect with the direction of the fabric :) )

HST and life lessons

And the task for another week of the Star Surround QAL is done!

Half Square Triangles.

And I learned few things doing this task:

1. I conquered the HST... the first time I tried them (quite a long time ago) I didn't follow such a nice tutorial, so I didn't know that is the final trimming  the magic trick that makes them perfect!! :) after I pressed them open, I saw them all wonky I panicked... but then I kept reading the tutorial and I learned that I need to trim them down and now each of them is perfect! :) I am sooooo happy!
HST you don't scare me any more! :)

2. I may have some problems counting up to 10, because I found out I had two extra green squares ;) well, it's better two extras than two missing :)

3. I don't like the "assembly line" approach... don't get me wrong, the tutorial Melissa put together is great, but my body (and mind) doesn't like to do the same movement for more than 3 times in a row (any movement/task)... the assembly line approach maybe saves time, but after each part (chain sewing, cutting, trimming, pressing) one part of my body was sore :) this is why I prefer paper piecing! because it involves a good mix of designing, printing, cutting paper, piecing small parts, putting together pieces, taking off paper, pressing, and embroidery... a good variety of tasks for my body ;)

And on that topic, let me introduce you Lucy Van Pelt, my first Peanuts/Snoopy paper piecing pattern :)



The pattern will be available here as soon as her friends are ready to join her :)

But for now, my job for the QAL is done and I am looking forward to conquer another classic that I never tried (Flying Geese) :)