I tried my hand at free-motion quilting tonight...

jwpbride

biggest. disaster. ever.

I just keep telling myself that it's ok that it looks like crap- it's a Christmas quilt, so I'll only have to look at it one month out of each year! haha

I started a sort of loop-de-loop quilting along the rows of the quilt then quickly decided that that will only be at the top and bottom three rows- with straight line quilting between it!

I'm hoping that no one gets within 3 feet of it.... the mistakes are obvious and a lot of the turns are sharp... really inconsistent stitch lengths too. Meh.

I'll PIP when I'm finished so y'all can all have a good laugh!

papagena

I'm sure it's still beautiful.  You can make a quilt for me anytime, lady!

CABunny

I'm sure it will turn out great!

lauraandlee

I always tell my students that no one knows the mistakes unless you point them out.  Free-motion is HARD.  I work with someone who is a multiple-award winning quilter and she's AMAZING.  She has worked for my mom for like 15 years making samples and teaching classes.  She's so good because for 8 hours a day she gets to practice on the samples, lol. 

I have dozens and dozens of muslin sandwiches that I've practiced quilting on.  It's worth it to check out some DVDs (I'll have to look at the name of a 3-part-series I have) or look online for tutorials that you can follow, but really, it's practice, practice, practice and then more practice....

YAY for diving in though!!!!

proudarmywife08

Its tough to get the hang of for sure. I always make a practice quilt sandwich and do that until I feel comfortable with doing it on my actual quilt.

jwpbride

proudarmywife08:

Its tough to get the hang of for sure. I always make a practice quilt sandwich and do that until I feel comfortable with doing it on my actual quilt.

Yeah, I've done like 10 practice sandwiches... haha!