WWW or What I’ve been Working on Wednesday

Here it is Wednesday again (and it's almost over too! Oops it is over. Oh well.)! I’ve finished all of the blocks of the month for 2013 for a group project I was participating in at the Arlington Quilt Guild. Yes I was four behind and had to be finished and turn them in last night. Here are the last five. The fall leaves one had to be redone because my seam allowances were way off and my choice of fabric for one of the blocks didn’t not sing for me. Here’s the first one and it’s replacement.

 

Fall Leaves 

Then these followed:

I “won” (we all received one of the sets by having our names drawn) the blue and white blocks. I kind of wanted the black and white/red and white ones but I’m okay with blue and white. I’ve always loved that combination ever since I was a kid. I actually carried around a page from a magazine of a blue and white bedroom that I dreamed about having. I may even still have the page somewhere. I don’t think I would want that for my bedroom now but I still love blue and white.

The other thing I’ve been working on is FME. That’s free motion embroidery. But not the pretty colorful flowers that your grandma or in my case that I embroidered on pillowcases but a doodle type of FME on loosely woven fabric. My first attempts at this process were dismal not to my liking. They were ok but I found it a little difficult to do. I finally got the courage to try again and discovered that I had been using the wrong type of hoop to hold my fabric. It had a ridge on the top and bottom so that the fabric was not flat on the bed of the sewing machine. Once I switched to a different hoop I was off and running. After listening to Karen Ruane talk about her process several times I realized the other mistake was not running the machine fast enough and not moving my fabric around slow enough. Sort of like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. But I finally got the rhythm of it and now I want to do more!

The only thing now was my hoop was round and I kept hitting the edge of the hoop with the FME foot. All of the work was done in the round. I wanted a more rectangular piece to work with but didn’t care for removing the fabric from the hoop and re-positioning it. Then I stopped at JoAnn’s for some yarn I needed and decided to look around. I found this square hoop that looked like it would work. So I’m giving it a whirl!

 

Trying out the new hoop for free motion embroidery

One thing I found out was the "frame" is too high and I had to take off my FME foot and then insert the hoop and put the foot back on. That was a pain. The other thing is the hoop is too wide for the arm of my machine so I had to think about how to maneuver around the hoop. Just takes practice. And I do like it.

And I’m still trying to straighten up my work area. I can find things and get more sewing/quilting/crafting done now but I still have more to do.

Happy Stitching!

Rose