free motion quilting – Wendy’s Quilting and Life

I am for the most part a self taught quilter, I had never actually touched a Longarm quilting machine until mine arrived almost 19 years ago.

I have always loved to play with fabric and notions and very early on in my life with my Moms sewing machine…until she up graded and gave me her old one, I may have been 9 years or so at that point.

My love of sewing and then quilting has never deminished.

These two quilts are examples of trying out new to me techniques in 2013. They were inspired by the work and book by Angela Walters of Quilting is My Therapy.

This first quilt was one I designed myself wanting an opportunity to play with new ideas and adding piping as a detail in the piecing. The floral print gave me the opportunity to outline and showcase the flowers.

This type of quilting is a lot of fun, well for me anyways! I enjoy creating this density and variety in quilting when I can.

The next quilt was pieced using a pattern called picnic which I found on the Moda Bakeshop site from 2013.

Again playing with ideas from Angela Walters for the quilting. When learning to quilt it was suggested to use a busy backing which I did.

I have a customer quilt in my queue that I am planning to use different quilting fills on, it’s been good to look back on previous work alongside with playing with new ideas.

Last night I began quilting a placemat with my Juki Haruka, it’s a bright and busy mat and a beginning project while I work on this new to me skill.

My morning view… well it was actually dark out when I woke at my regular time though today it was now 6:30.

The view out the picture window shows the last of the tamarack needles that haven’t fallen against the bare trees and the evergreens. Well there are a few stragglers on the maple trees. It won’t be long before the view will be blanketed in snow…

It’s been a busy month so far in my studio. My Longarm has a new hook and has been freshly retimed…this is my third hook on my APQS Millennium. They do wear out after a while and the time it took to replace is so well worth the effort.

My Longarm is a faithful friend that doesn’t require a lot of care other that regular cleaning and oiling and replacing worn out or almost worn out parts.

I don’t often mention quilt backings…one of the services that I like to provide to my customers is to piece their yardage into backings. This complimentary service began shortly after I began quilting for others.

After trying to load a customer quilt with a queen sized backing that had been pieced and was in no way going to work I had no choice but to call and let her know that I wasn’t able to use the backing. She brought me a wide back instead. She explained that she found it really challenging to piece such a large backing.

Well I love piecing! This includes backings, thankfully I have the space and ability. I also know how I like a backing pieced in order to obtain the best result on my Longarm. Many customers bring their backings pieced and ready for quilting and many are so thankful when I let them know that this is a complimentary service that I offer.

I have mentioned before how much I love my Juki Haruka, have I mentioned that her name is Bella? Well Bella has a new friend in town named Agnes!!! I am really excited to see what she and her owner Deb come up with 😊 another friend and customer has added a Juki Haruka to her sewing room … not sure if she has a name or not.

One of the main reasons I had for wanting to add this straight stitch machine to my studio was my desire to learn to free-motion quilt on my domestic machine. I do love quilting on my Longarm, I use it primarily for quilting for others.

I began practicing about a month ago, an hour several evenings a week after finishing on my Longarm.

One of my first evenings of playing

And some of my latest play pieces:

Practicing doesn’t have to be perfect and either does quilting however practice does lead to improvement in your quilting.

Tag: free motion quilting

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