CHARM ABOUT YOU

I'm from Manchester, part of the reason I live here is because I love rain so when I saw this weeks Free Motion Friday's Challenge at Fluffy Sheep Quilting was Drop Art I fell in love! I also left it until last night because I was putting it off in case I was horrible at it...

There is something wrong with me... free motion quilting should NOT equal WORMS!!! And yet look:


Somehow I managed to even make drops look like worms!!!

So I had a little talk to myself. It went like this, 'Lucy, you love rain, you talk about it all the time, you're happy when it does, you smile when you hear the sound. You KNOW rain. Think about rain. Think about those big drops of rain and sew RAIN DROPS!!'

I tried again...

And you know what, I am pretty happy with it. It looks like drops!! I even showed it to my husband, said 'what are these?' and he said 'drops'! That's good enough for me :)

Some are a bit wiggly, sometimes I still end up in super-speed and have to tell myself to slow down but all in all I think it's not bad. I love this design for free motion and will definitely use it (in fact I even have something in mind but there's no way I can start another quilt yet!! Current count is 5 and that's enough at once for me!). Drop Art was a brilliant choice so thank you Fluffy Sheep Quilting!!

I also have a couple of finishes this week so I'm linking up to TGIFF at Quilt Matters.

My step-dad retires next week so I'm going to give him this mug rug (although my mum told me it's too nice to put coffee on!!):

I'm pleased with how it turned out. This is the first bit of embroidery I've ever given someone and I've never appliqued before (you can totally tell hahahahaha). This is also my first bit of hand quilting. That's actually a lot of firsts for one project isn't it??! Oh well I had a vision of what I wanted to give him and I'm glad I had a try. I know he'll appreciate the handmadeness of it :)

I also finished the second half quilt earlier this week and am having a vote (poll on the right) to see which one to keep - please read about it here and vote if you haven't already!



The poll finishes in a few days so I'll shut up about it soon!!

I have to finish that baby quilt this weekend so wish me luck :)

I haven't done quite as much as I would have liked this weekend but here's where I'm up to. After the fmq practice I realised it may take some time for me to get good!! So, rather than wait, I decided just to go for it on the other half quilt. I'm cheating slightly because I'm outlining some of the design on the backing fabric -  literally quilting back to front. It looks weird but once it's all done I think it'll just look like wiggly lines. When I look at it I'm switching between seeing odd bear shapes, snowflakes, stars and squiggles! I kind of like the oddness! When it's done I'll show you more and see what you think:



I'm realising how crucial speed is and finding it really hard to stay at a decent speed without going super fast! It is fun but boy my arms are getting a work out!! I'm also using LOTS of thread.

My gold watch project went from this,


to this...


Some slightly shabby looking hand embroidery (which doesn't look SO bad in real life!!). Need to do some machine sewing, make a label and then I'm planning on hand quilting it. My step-dad retires October 2011 - see the time?!