Sunday, January 15, 2012

First finish of 2012

Woo Hoo, I was able to get some sewing done, finally! I have my projects organized by what needs to be done with them. I also printed out the list at the very bottom of my blog, and it sits on my sewing table. I look at it every time I get to go in my sewing room. I am making progress, which is GREAT!!!

Why blogger, WHY do you insist on rotating photos?!?!?!
Last summer a designer named Kim, @ Chatterbox Quilts, contacted me to test out her pattern she designed. I got it all done,and then it got buried.  Then I started sewing on the appliques, did the first flower with a blanket stitch, I HATED it. So it sat and got buried again, today....I pulled it off the pile, with a plan. I signed up for the FMQ Challenge and this month is a leave motif.......well this table runner has flowers, so it will be perfect. So I pulled out all the stitches in the blanket stitch, what a pain in the ass that was! Then away I went with the leaves for the challenge, it turned out pretty good I suppose for a FMQ beginner. But starting on something small like this is perfect, I didn't have to fight it in the machine. I plan on doing a lot of FMQ this year, so start with the little projects.

See, it isn't perfect and the stitches in the beginning were REALLY BIG and LONG, but hey I got better as I went along. Made the binding and sewn that on too. Now throw it in the washer and dryer and make it all crinkly! Well now I am headed over to Such a Sew and Sew to post a January Finish in her Finish Challenge.


I also have finished the lil string blocks for Orca Bay YIPPEE! Now only 7 more steps to go. Those string blocks hold everything up, because with all that scrappy mess all over the table, nothing else gets worked on. So I will not be doing the other strings for that mystery for a little while, so I can continue on the MANY other projects I have going on. I AM going to get at least half of my UFO's, WIP's, and PhD's done this year!

11 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Such a pretty table runner! I love the colors and your leaves are really great. They have such a pretty shape. I haven't practiced this one yet, but in the past my leaves have always been narrow and anemic looking. Hope I do better with the tip of thinking of hearts as you make them.

Also, I have trouble with blogger rotating my photos too. If you upload directly to your blogger album in Picasa, it gives you a preview of the photo before it actually saves it and if it has been rotated, you can fix that quickly before you save it. Otherwise, you have to go into picnic to edit, which is a huge pain! Hope that made sense.

Anyway, thanks for linking up! I love seeing your finish! I saw the button in the sidebar, but could you please add the January button (found on the linky party post) to your post?

Thanks so much!

xo -E

Amy said...

Yay......excellent FMQ! The flowers are adorable and the heart FMQ fits so nicely.

Linda said...

How nice to have a finish! Your FMQ is great.

Barbara said...

Very cute!

Ellen said...

Such a pretty table runner and you did a great job on the FMQ!

Lynette said...

I love leaf motifs for free-motion quilting. Good for you!! I started fmq a few months ago, and I'm almost totally comfortable with it now. At least I'm no longer afraid of it. ;D

Kath said...

Thats so pretty! lovely leaves :-D
I always re-size my photos (to 40%) so they load faster and it doesnt affect the size they end up on the blog.

Shay said...

I love those little flowers in the border Ann Marie. I think your quilting looks great !

Way to go on the finish .

scraphappy said...

Yeah! A finish! Congratulations! Nothing helps FMQ better than lots and lots of practice. Your leaves look great. Best of luck in crossing the next quilt off the list.

Sarah said...

Your FMQ looks great and you're right - the leaves fit perfectly with the flowers.

Good luck finishing half of your outstanding projects!

Quilter Kathy said...

Congrats on the finish! A perfect project to welcome the spring!