Thursday, March 1, 2018

TBT-All Framed Up


Oh my goodness, where has the month gone??  I know February is a tiny month, but it just seems like it was January.  That's okay, I'll ring in March with a little Throwback Thursday fun and my dear friend, Sandra at mmm!quilts.

For today, I chose my version of Melissa Corry's All Framed Up baby quilt for Moda Bake Shop.  I used precuts and yardage of Moda's Blue Berry Crumb Cake line.  To this day when I see this fabric I still want a blueberry muffin.  I'm drooling now.


I made this quilt simply because I wanted to make something and I loved the fabrics and pattern.  It currently lives (all finished) folded on a shelf in my back room.  I guess it ended up in the back room kind of forgotten because I didn't think it was good enough to give away.  This quilt is part of my learning to free motion journey.



These two pictures are of a different quilt, earlier than All Framed Up, but I wanted to show the stitching on it.  I attempted to meander/stipple in the white fabric.  My stitches were so microscopic and close together you couldn't pick them out if you wanted.  My movements where kind of jerky and didn't flow with ease.  I think that's normal for most people starting out.  Even though these stitches are far from perfect, it still created wonderful texture and my (at the time) seven year old daughter, didn't care.  She loved it.

I show you those stitches, so that we can talk about these stitches.  I again tried stippling all over All Framed Up.  I guess I really had not been brave enough to try other motifs at this point and I also find myself wondering why I never quilted with my walking foot?


My scale is of course bigger than the previous quilt, but with the challenge of quilting on a larger scale, my stitches became bigger.  Some are much bigger than I would like.  My movement in the shapes are much better, but still jerky in places.  I will note that I did continue to practice (sporadically) between these two quilts, meaning practice does make you better.


If you look to the right of my hand, you may notice a thick goop or thread and I just noticed a spot where it looks like the thread just stops.  This is in the center of the quilt (of course).  I remember having a HUGE bird's next on the back.  I probably cried for a little bit, but eventually picked it out the best I could.  I am assuming that was me trying to back track or travel.  The random stopped stitch, not sure about that one.

But lets fast forward to now.


This is the back of a quilt I have recently finished.  My stippling is much more curvy and flowy.  It's not perfect because it never will be, I'm human (and I own cats that like to jump on said quilt while I'm quilting).  I show you all this, because I'm going to keep harping nagging encouraging you to free motion quilt.  I'm going to guess 90% of people who start out free motioning end up feeling discouraged and depressed that their stitches don't measure up to someone else's.  STOP.  I look at it this way, maybe the universe says you have to stitch so many bad stitches before you stitch good ones.  Again I think it's called practice, believe me I avoided it too.  So don't be afraid to quilt, it puts you one stitch closer to where you want to be.  Ok, it's getting windy up here on top of my soap box, I'll come back down.


All in all from the back I think it looks pretty good, wobbles and bobbles.  You can barely even notice the use to be birds nest spot.


And there is another picture of the front.  I should do something with this quilt other than leave it on a shelf, but I have no idea what.  So until next month, I leave you with Blueberry Crumb Cake All Framed Up.

Do you have a quilt from your quilty past you'd like to share?  Take some pictures, write a post and hop over to mmm!quilts and tell us all about it.


Today I'm linking up with Throwback Thursday.

13 comments:

Susan said...

Love the colors and fabrics in this one!

Yvonne from Quilting Jetgirl said...

Oh man, your comment about blueberry muffins made me hungry, too! Thank you for the honesty and showing your quilting progression. So often we are looking at people who have put in the time and mastery and feel like we will never get there ourselves.

piecefulwendy said...

Well, I was sitting here craving a cinnamon roll, but then you brought up blueberry muffins and that would be healthier because, fruit, right? Anyway, your no-calorie blueberry quilt is fun to see, and I appreciate seeing your progress with free motion. I do need to keep practicing, so thanks for the encouragement!

chrisknits said...

Now you got me craving blueberry muffins! Lovely quilt, and it would be perfect for a little baby boy. Maybe you just have to wait for one to arrive?

Marti said...

I think the both look pretty good. I don't see any of the stretched out stitches on the back that I had when first practicing FMQ. I still need a lot more practice for my quilts to be even halfway acceptable. Do you have a long arm or do you FMQ on a table top machine?

Janice Holton said...

I like your soapbox. :) And if you ask me, (I'll step up on the soapbox now) any hand made quilt, to a non-sewer is pretty wonderful. So don't be thinkingt this "isn't good enough" business. OK, soapbox is yours again. Seriously, even the simplest quilting looks amazing to those who have no idea how it is done. I'm sure you have run into that. Somebody told me recently that I am too hard on myself and they were right. I think it's a common malady amongst quilters.

Stitchin At Home said...

The jerky non flowing movements were normal for me when I first started out. Looking back shows how far you've come. You do beautiful fmqing! I love blueberries and blueberry muffins are wonderful

JanineMarie said...

Blueberry Crumb Cake—what a great name!! I think this should be your designated snacking quilt. I can totally relate to the bird’s nest stage of learning to FMQ. I remember having to put a sign up to remind me to put the presser foot down on my machine because that’s what always tripped me up. But, yes. Practice makes better—never perfect, and that’s okay. I will never have even sized stitches, but I don’t care. It all looks fine after washing. And look where your practice took you in a short time. Ruler work. Sigh.

Louise said...

Hey, is there room up on that soapbox for me, too? I want to shout out this same message...ain't nothing wrong with what any of us are quilting TODAY and what we quilt TOMORROW will be a little better. I wish I could hug all the frustrated quilters and say: Love the place you are right now and recognize all the steps you took just to be HERE, NOW.

OK, I feel better :) Thanks for sharing your quilting past!

KaHolly said...

Your quilt looks delicious! ALL my quilts are 'practice' quilts! And so much fun to stitch, each and every one.

Lynette said...

Nice throwback share! It takes a lot of practice to get really good at large-scale meandering on the domestic. I love seeing the improvement comparison, but even with its issues, this quilt is really lovely.

Home Sewn By Us said...

Hi Tish,
Aww, what a nice quilt to share on TBT. Keep that quilt out of the back room! Good grief, don't you have a family room it can hang out in and be loved a bit? Brown goes with everything, and being hungry for blueberry muffins all the time isn't a bad thing. I think your meandering FMQ looks pretty darn good. No one else is as critical of your stitching as you are - we all know that. Thanks for the soap box nagging about FMQing. I need the nagging but I am doing more and more of it. That and rulers are on my mental list to improve upon this year. ~smile~ Roseanne

Sandy Panagos said...

Ahhh, the mystery of the stopping stitches. Don't you wonder? lol Cute quilt. Perfect pattern for a baby quilt!

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