My First Attempt at free-motion quilting

And let me tell you, it was NOT good. I actually sat down at my sewing machine and thought how hard could it really be? I mean, all those videos on YouTube make it look so easy and it just flows so beautifully. Well, it was not easy. I didn’t have a good grip on the fabric, my lighting was poor and my chair was too high blah, blah....... Basically I stunk! I read somewhere in one of my many quilting books that it can take anywhere from 50 to 500 hours of practice to get good. Huh, only about 48-498 hours to go.


I mentioned Quilt Pounce before, but I didn’t actually show you what it looks like once it actually comes off onto the fabric.

The white comes out really well on the darker fabric. You will notice in the upper left corner of the picture is a smaller lighter blue box with a stencil marking in it, which is a little harder to see. I think I was being a little too light handed. I tried looking for a demo video of the Quilt Pounce but couldn’t find one. I might see if I can talk my husband into being a camera guy for me, and I will show just how easy it is to use, and how it would save hours of time hand tracing stencils. 


This is my practice quilt, but I decided to try free motion quilting on a scrap quilt and like I said it was terrible. You can see for yourself:

I 'pounced' out the pattern and then tried my best - I really thought it would have been easier! I had a few more attempts and then came up with this next sample:

Okay, the lines are getting a little better and it is not so wobbly and I managed to travel over some of the previous line - some of the time. Still, not real good. I then thought I would try some waves:

Probably my best attempt, with no traveling needed and going in one direction, it did make it easier. You can see in the bottom left corner my finger grips. I found them really hard to use, in the sense I didn’t feel in control of them, they only come in two sizes 1 and 3. The size 1 was good for my index and middle fingers, but the size 3 was too big for my thumbs and they kept slipping off, but I found without them I couldn’t do anything with the fabric. 


I have since found on the internet something call a Supreme Slider and I think I might have to invest in one of those. The worst thing was that my fabric seemed to catch and my motions were a little jerky. I also saw something called a Quilt Halo, I watched the video and thought that looked nifty too. I am not sure if I will get one of those yet. I still need to do at least 48 hours worth of practice. I am going to have to make a few sample quilts, stencil them up with my quilt pounce, put on my Supreme Slider and go for it and see what comes out. Fingers crossed, the next lot will be a little better. I might have to invest in some quilting gloves....