Free motion quilting seemed like a great idea this morning.  I was all set to do some really cool stuff with Sarah’s quilt.  But when I sat down to practice, Things Did Not Go Well.  I couldn’t get any control over my stitch length at all, or over where the quilting lines were going.

The problem, as you can see from my picture,  is my set-up.  I really do need a sewing table that I can set my sewing machine down into so that it’s flush with the surface.  I considered trying to put things around my sewing machine to make a flat surface to quilt on, but I’ve jury-rigged things in the past, with less than satisfactory results!

I need to save my pennies so that I can get a sewing table.  Until I can do that, I decided it’s best to save myself the frustration of making a mess (and then having to waste hours picking out a million stitches of varying lengths).  So I wimped out, and put the walking foot back on.

You’d be amazed what you can do with a walking foot.  The obvious first step was to make parallel lines of stitching on the blue sashing.  This was pretty easy, and went reasonably fast.

I still wasn’t sure what to do with the individual blocks, though.  I was going to do the borders, then come back to the blocks later, but after lunch I thought I’d try my hand at quilting the center block.

I worked around the log cabin strips in a spiral, using the walking foot.  When I came to the cats in the center, I decided to outline quilt them.

The center block was the most complicated, so I wanted to do it first to get it out of the way.  I outlined the kitties, the kitten in the carriage, the wheels, and some of the streamers.

It was pretty painstaking work, but it just proves that anything is possible, especially if you’re willing to horse around with a walking foot!  But it took less than an hour, all told, so it was still a lot faster than hand quilting it.  Plus it will go through the washer and dryer with no problems, which is important for a baby quilt!

The other blocks are smaller, and have less detail, so they should go a whole lot faster than the center block.

I’m pretty jazzed. I may even have the quilting done by the end of the week!

When I left you yesterday, I was considering how I wanted to quilt Sarah’s baby quilt.  I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with machine quilting.  I love how fast it is (this from someone who has hand-quilted a king-sized quilt–never again!), but I don’t really feel like I have much control over the process–my sewing machine is going a zillion miles an hour, and I’m just along for the ride!  And barely hanging on, at that!

Enter the new blog I just discovered–365 Days of Free Motion Quilting Filler Designs, by Leah Day.  Leah has given herself an incredible challenge:  to design a new free motion filler design every day for a whole year.

Leah herself asks the question, “Can I Create A New Free Motion Filler Design Every Day For A Year?”  Well, it looks like she’s doing it, and doing a great job of it, too.  She started in August of this year.  Not only is she coming up with all these cool designs, she also has a video of how to do each one.

She makes samples of each design, and keeps them in transparent sleeves in a three-ring binder.  Then when she’s ready to start machine quilting, she can just pull out her binder and choose what designs to use.

So my goal is to start with Day One, and work through a design each day.  I’ll end up with a binder full of designs, too.  If you’re like me, when you’re faced with the wide open spaces of a quilt needing to be quilted, you draw a blank as to what to do.  This will help solve that problem, and I’ll become a better machine quilter, too.

Leah also has tips for setting up your sewing area, and sells quilting supplies, too.

Oh yeah, what am I doing with Sarah’s quilt?  I dug up my trusty walking foot, and started out by using a feather stitch instead of quilting in the ditch.  A couple of years ago, I saw somebody in a quilt shop in Gatlinburg, TN, using a machine embroidery stitch to quilt with, instead of just doing ditch quilting.  I was intrigued, and I’ve wanted to try it ever since.  And it does look pretty cool.  I’m using yellow thread on the back, and fuschia on the front.

I’m also going to use Leah’s Shadow Waves on the sashing and borders.  I haven’t decided what to do with the cat blocks yet, but that will come.   At this point I’m thinking of stitching in the ditch along the log cabin strips in a spiral shape to the cat picture in the middle.