Bonus Edition
This is one of the blocks I quilted when I was trying to write a book on free motion machine quilting.
Step 1: Cut two 10” squares of cotton fabric, layer with batting.
Step 2: Quilt. This sounds wildly simplistic and rather annoying. I get it. But, it’s what I did, and do.
Please allow me to back up a bit. A long time ago, in another galaxy, I was inspired by the Color Fixes on Linda M Poole’s blog. My finger would start making the general shape of the image while gazing upon the loveliness. Often these images swirled around in my brain for days, the color whirling and swirling to and fro like the ocean waves, or the concentric circles resulting from a stone thrown in a pond.
When sitting down to stitch something like this I’d grab those square, add batting – whatever I have on hand – and get started stitching. They never look like the images on Linda’s site. Nope. These are always in the form of whatever my brain is thinking in that moment. I pick a thread that inspires me in that moment, pick a spot along the edge and start stitching across somewhere. Along the way the line will bend, and curve, sometimes ending on the right or left side rather than directly across. Then I’ll echo back about 1/8th of an inch away from the previous line. Back and forth, back and forth until I like how it looks.
There is no worrying about perfection on these pieces. There is simply doing.
Later on adding words started happening. Because quilting is a lot like hand writing.
So when you have a moment make a 10” quilt sandwich, grab your favorite spool of thread, put in a fresh needles that goes with your favorite thread, and get started stitching. “Don’t worry if its not good enough for anyone else to hear, just sing, sing a song.” Or in this case, quilt, quilt a quilt.
August Quilted Block of the Month
Quilted Block of the Month August Week 2
Quilted block of the Month August Week 3
Happy Quilting!
Teri
