Friday Whoop! 7/15/11

Some days are diamonds, some days, not so much!  Diamonds, this week, for sure.  Or at least zirconias.  A friend had made three comfort quilts to be donated by our guild, and asked if I wanted to practice my quilting.  Sure!  I learned from Mindy Casperson in her DVD, "Longarmed & Fabulous!" to stabilize by stitching in the ditch before quilting.  Maybe I've heard that somewhere before.  And chose to ignore it.  But Mindy was adamant, so I did.  


Ever hear of a "Line Tamer" ruler?  (Here's info: http://www.fourpawsquilting.com/pages/template.html)  I love this ruler!!  It didn't take long for me to get the hang of using it, and since it holds your hopping foot on both sides, I felt like I had much more control on the stitching in the ditch!  That was a good beginning!


Then I brought out my circles:  http://www.creativegridsusa.com/products.cfm?item_num=BDQCIR&ref=c and I went to town making curves around the sides of squares.  I've done this free-motion on my Janome, but using templates is so much more precise!!  


That looked pretty good, if I say so myself.  But then, as I was unloading the quilt, I decided to take it up a notch, and did some stippling in every other area where the circles make orange peels. I love, love the way it turned out!!  Yay, me!!!  I'm feeling more confident every day that I can make a quilt even better with quilting!  And I'm learning so much every time: loading the quilt, deciding on threads, selecting the tools of the trade, stitching in the ditch, and doing something to make basic designs just a little better.  


Go to Sarah's blog: ConfessionsofaFabricAddict.blogspot.com to see other projects!