Hungry Caterpillar

The quilt is finished!  It is washed and dried and my daughter is sleeping under it as I type.

I tried so many different free motion quilting designs on this quilt, many from Angela Walters’s book.  My two favorites were the flower and the wonky diamonds.  I could see myself getting pretty good at both of those. 

I really like the way the back of the quilt looks with all the different quilting designs.  The pebbling was difficult but I love the texture it adds to the front and the back!

My daughter was thrilled to see the quilt when it was done.  She loves The Hungry Caterpillar book and it’s that time of year when caterpillars are making their appearance.  Every year we order Painted Lady caterpillars.  She was old enough this year to help release them.

I hope you have a wonderful week!

Hungry Caterpillar in Progress

This quilt is perfect for attempting new free motion quilting designs.  I have been wanting to try new designs besides stippling for a long time.  Unfortunately, every time I’ve tried something new, it hasn’t turned out very good.  (Disclaimer:  By no means is this free motion quilting very good, either, it’s just not hideous!)

I think the saving grace is that the drawings have a “scribble” quality to them, so my quilting can be scribbly too.  I quilted all over this butterfly and then did pointy stippling around it.

I also did some outlining and lines on this caterpillar.  I had the crazy idea to try pebbling for the first time and outline all the little circles in the center of this quilt.  I think it might have been a little harder to “stay in the lines” by outlining rather than try pebbling on my own, but it’s all pebbled and I love the texture it gives the frames around the center panel!

My favorite design is this flower.  How easy it was to do and looks okay, too!

A couple things I did this time to make free motion quilting more of a pleasure than a pain:

• taped down the supreme slider
• wore my Machinger’s gloves
• remembered (after just a few minutes of quilting) to set the speed control on my machine to a much slower speed than I use to piece
• used Aurifil 50 wt. thread which runs so smoothly through my machine
• changed out my bobbin case and throat plate for a special model made specifically for fmq for my machine that I’ve had for years and forgot about

The basic premise of a Malcolm Gladwell book I read a few years ago was that people become “experts” in their field after putting in 10,000 hours of practice.  So, I have about 9,997 more hours to go!

I also wanted to share this funny photo from this morning.  Our squirrel-proof bird feeder needs to be replaced! 

Have a great day!