FMQ Friday--stencils and fills practice

It's almost Friday and I know tomorrow and the weekend are going to be very busy, so I'm going to take a few minutes tonight to post my FMQ Friday update, linking to Leah Day's FMQ Project. I'm nearly done piecing the back of Cindy's comfort quilt. The plan is to pin it and the buffalo baby quilt tomorrow and have them ready to quilt this weekend.

For my FMQ this week, I worked on my Hugs & Kisses project, which will makes its appearance next Friday, Feb 15. I can hardly wait! It's been so fun to work on! After testing out a stencil for that project, I used the same practice square to do some McTavishing before attempting to add any more detail to my Express Your Love quilt. For a first try, it's not half bad!

I'm still figuring out how to shift from one cluster to another and not have them all going the same direction, but I'm getting there. Today Leah had some concentric circles and I gave that a shot as well, although, having just oiled my machine and getting ready to work on a big project, I did it in cream-on-white, so it doesn't show up quite as well.

I've been using this practice piece for a number of designs and just keep adding more layers and filling in more spaces. It's getting interesting, even for a simple practice piece!

The biggest project I worked on today, to take a break from piecing, was to get a jump start on the quilting on a friend's quilt. This quilt is huge and is taking all of my skill to manage it and keep going at a steady pace in the right direction. I'm working at my HQ Sweet Sixteen table model. All of the ditch work is complete, so I pulled out the stencil I had selected to fit in the 12" blocks and started to work on it. I'm using blue pounce to mark the blocks and only one at a time as I go. That way, the chalk doesn't brush off before I get to the next block.

I'm using a creamy Aurifil 50 on top and in the bobbin and it's coming out lovely! So far I have 8 blocks done, still a long way to go, plus something in the sashings and borders. Given that Jacob only slept for 10-15 minute mini-naps between crying jags with his teething today, it's a miracle I got any done!

I do feel like I'm gaining confidence and getting better at maintaining more consistent speed and stitch length. I don't use a stitch regulator at this point, although I did buy one to go with my machine. I may play with that later, but for now I'm good.

This weekend will be great fun. The local guild is holding a 3-day retreat here in town at a local church. We get to set up at 4pm Friday and sew to 10pm, return Saturday morning at 8am and sew until 10pm, and once again on Sunday from 8am to 4pm. There are about 30 quilters signed up and it's always great fun seeing what everyone has going. The guild holds these local retreats quarterly, so I get to escape my household duties fairly often for an entire weekend of quilting with my buddies! I have three projects to get ditched and hopefully quilted and bound during my weekend. If I can get that done, I'll be in great shape! Two gals who live about an hour from here stay with me, so it will be a nonstop weekend of fun.


More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz