l think l will leave it to the professionals!!

l took a machine quilting class yesterday. Not to learn to quilt the  big quilts, just the mini ones that are hardly worth taking to a professional quilter. The ones l love making as gifts.

We started the day with simple shapes, to build our confidence with free motion quilting, and try and get some degree of stitch regularity . Its looked easy till we had to control driving that fabric under the needle without the help of the feed dogs or the presser foot..

Then we had to trace this flower pattern on our fabric and follow the continuous line to the end. Thought that would be easy till l had trouble staying on the lines. Got lost a few times.  l called it poetic licence!!

Here is the back of the work which  looks better than the front, almost passable as a cushion for my  mother who has cataracts. She will  be happy to see it!!!!

After lunch, we moved on to making pebbles,  those perfect ones,  bottom left, are the teachers sample.

 Then we tried Mctavishing, lots of artistic freedom here,

Some gum leaves, and even a few gum nuts,

Then, of course, a bunch of banana's.

  

All in all, l enjoyed the day, and became a little closer and a lot more comfortable with my sewing machine. By the end of the day l was able to do the work below. NOT!!!!

This stunning quilting was done by Karen, over at Quilts On Basting's.  l just picked it up on Saturday on our way home from Castlemaine. Its heading off to Sydney by the end of the week. As its a magazine project, l can't show you any more than this till its published. Sorry!!  Go over and read her story about quilting this quilt. And hope this never happens to you.

Don't worry Karen,  l doubt l will ever be competition to your wonderful work.

But l feel confident enough to tackle those small quilts in a big pile in the corner, which in the past l would just use straight stitching on. Mind you, l need lots of practice first.

Thanks for visiting,

Linda.