Free motion quilting with L plates

Bonjour on this cold and occasionally sunny morning - someone said we might get some snow and it does feel cold enough! I'm ready with a very cuddly scarf that is, at last, off my needles.

I spent several hours this weekend learning to free motion quilt off my frame. For those of you who have no idea what this means the set up is a sewing machine with zero stitch length and no feed dogs to grip the fabric with control of stitch direction and length in my hands.


So, so difficult but I was warned by every expert on the internet that it would and it was just a matter of practice.



And practice I did, on these 3 small pieces

You may be thinking why I need this technique? So was I as I struggled with my foot, hand and eye co-ordination and the results looked, well, quite frankly, awful. But, with practice I improved, from very bad to not very good and managed two fill patterns that will be very useful to blend with other designs that I can do on the frame or with the walking foot.

Here's my very best 'Tree bark'

and a reasonable attempt at 'Pebbles'

and a very poor spiral!!!

So now I have a choice  - pebbles or tree bark - to try as fillers on my next set of placemats -these are just the right size to quilt off the frame and I'm able to use up more scraps --- oh joy.  I'll post pics when they are finished. 

Have a good day. mx