Making A Gorgeous Red Basket

Welcome to week 384 of Free Motion Mavericks. I'm sorry that I'm a couple of days early, but I will run it until next Tuesday night. The last couple of weeks have mostly been about the Conversations exhibition and today is not an exception. I'm not getting ahead on my son's Version 2.0 quilt - but he's been very understanding

Hi! This project is a Squirrel as well as a useful way to procrastinate. More about the procrastination later

Well, I didn't make "scrappy sewing" one of my New Year's Resolutions, but maybe I should have - because I have FINALLY been doing some fun scrappy sewing!

I'm working on the quilts for this year's tutorial series, String Therapy, so I grabbed my blue drawer of strings and a stack of white 5" squares that have been in my scrap drawer F.O.R.E.V.E.R.

This is the block I chose to make.  It's from a tutorial by Christina Cameli and wow is it a quick and easy scrap buster ...

Two free motion quilting (FMQ) posts in a week - wow! I had the weekend to myself and spent most of it fixing and continuing to FMQ our king size batik bed quilt. At 13 x 13 blocks, it's huge! It wasn't always pleasant but I did get a lot done.

After this weekend, only 49 blocks left to FMQ

Fixing ripped blocks

When I sandwiched this quilt in July of 2016, I stitched-in-the-ditch around each block. However, since each block is 8", that really wasn't enough quilting, especially considering that we've been sleeping under this quilt ...

Hi! Welcome to week 266 of the Free Motion Mavericks linking party!

A production of quilted journal covers

A lovely neutral cover

I can't believe that it's the end of January. It was pretty intense quilting wise. I finished my two Project Quilting and the Winter Blues project with very little time to spare. That's how I live dangerously.

I can't believe that I've got so many posts this month! I've been busy finishing up my two Christmas gifts. Actually there was supposed to be one, but a squirrel came for a visit!

More quilted gifts

My December One Monthly Goal (OMG) was another free motion quilted (FMQ) fabric basket. I used some incredibly lovely Japanese fabric for the FMQ.

The light was at its best outside on the snow :-)

I took an indoor shot the next day

I'm really trying to avoid deadlines and I didn't decide to make a few gifts for Christmas lightly since I don't want these to be IOU gifts!

Christmas gift exchange

I am going to a potluck with my colleagues and of course there is a gift exchange. You know....unisex and under $20 (not including taxes). Personally I usually go for something edible but this year, I had a Christmas mug rug that's been hanging around my sewing room for the last year since I made it after Christmas. That seemed like a good way to ...

Don't you love practicing on something and then being able to use that practice piece to make a finished, usable project? That's what happened to my practice piece from last week's Free Motion Mavericks.

FMQ my practice piece

My piece went from this very bright poinsettia fabric to these "cat's eye" shapes with different types of feathers within and outside of the shapes.

FMQ using the leaves as templates

The pink bobbin thread produced this flower.

Adding swirls, paisleys and echoes between the ...

I took some time to play this week. Since I've signed up to Bluprint (Craftsy) for the next year, I thought that I should actually make something. So here is my experience making a basket from Christina Cameli's Free-Motion Quilted Gifts course.

My first FMQ fabric basket

Christina Cameli's Free-Motion Quilted basket