Free Motion Quilting Adventures in Review

What happened last year? Geesh, sometimes I'm not sure what happened yesterday. But through the magic of Blogger, I know what my top posts are for the year.

It's no surprise that my How to Free Motion Quilt Series got the most reader views. If you missed them or are a bit forgetful like me, you can click on the tab above or click below:

How to Free Motion Quilt: The Set up

How to free motion quilt series.

How to Free Motion Quilt: The Basic Motion and Tension

Free motion quilting how-to on tension

How to Free Motion Quilt: The Designs


Next was my post on How to Quilt with Rulers on a Domestic Sewing Machine

free motion quilting feet

Then my How to Make a Sewing Machine Table post got a whole lot of eyes on it.


And my simple trick for Keeping Rulers from Slipping was pretty popular too.


And the last of the super popular posts, though there were many others that got great traffic, was my post on New Rulers for Free Motion Quilting, a review of the Fine Line Rulers that I like so much.


So if you haven't checked them out, you might want to! And do a hard working quilting blogger a favor and share, subscribe, pin, whatever and I will be very grateful.

Happy New Year!

Free Motion Quilting Adventures in the New Year

 Another year is right around the corner! Is it time to make resolutions? I rarely keep them, but I am trying to lay out a framework for several goals. I want to continue my blog of course and make more videos, and teach more classes. I also want to try to sell a few of my designs.

free motion quilting design in process

So I've been working on getting my paper designs into the computer. Not too hard as long as you don't mind clicking the mouse a few billion times. About half of the clicks are on the "Undo" button! I scanned in the paper designs and then "trace" over them in the graphics program.

detail free motion quilting design in process

Things will get changed in the process too. Now that I've used the computer to tweak several of my designs, it's starting to get easier than pencil, paper, rulers, stencils, and erasers.

One of my projects is really super big if it works out, but I'm not sure it will yet. So there are also contingency plans in the works. My brain is so overloaded right now, that I don't know if I'm coming or going sometimes. Big, BIG! But not the typical blogger-writes-a-book or teaches an online class, though that would be great too.....

I've got two customer projects to work on. Both really should have been done before Christmas, but I just couldn't get them done. Good thing these customers are super-awesome friends too.

I want to do more videos too. Maybe shorter but more frequent ones. I'd love to get better with my camera skills, but there are only so many hours in the day! If I have to chose between photography and quilting, quilting wins every time.

Then there are the typical goals for me: lose weight (I actually lost weight over the holidays!), pay off debt (stupid cancer and layoffs), get organized, yell less at the kids..... (Did I admit that online? Yes. Real life here.)

OK, moving on...... This is not a mommy blog.

I can't wait to see what's in store for me this year and where I'll be going on my adventures! (Really. I can not wait! Hurry up already.)  ;-)

How about you? What's going on in your world? Anything you'd like to see me tackle on the blog?


Free Motion Quilting Video: Feathered Flower

I did a little free motion quilting practice yesterday on a quilt sandwich left over from last week's class. I went ahead and video'd some of it. Here's the first one with a feathered flower.


This feather can be used small for a filler or made much larger and used as an all-over design.

I noticed yesterday that I got a bunch of subscribers to my Youtube channel all of a sudden. I have absolutely no idea why. Maybe somebody shared it on a site? It could be dumb luck, but I'd love to know if there's somebody I could thank!

Video: A Quilty Christmas Thank You!


Just a quick video to say Merry Christmas and to thank you all for reading, commenting, and encouraging me as I share my free motion quilting adventures.


A special thank you to my latest class of free motion quilting students! These gals were a complete joy to work with and we laughed a lot!


Now off I go to do some Christmas baking and present wrapping. Thank you all so much and I hope you all have a joyous and merry Christmas.