FIRST DAY OF FMQ CHALLENGE

For you non-quilters, FMQ means Free Motion Quilting.  In other words, quilting by machine mostly without marking a design on the quilt first.  Of course, you will have a design in mind.  The design that I want to learn is feathers and below are my practice pieces.  The one on the left is my first one.  The right one on the darker fabric is my second practice section and on the left is my third.  I think the third one is definitely better than the first two, so I am already encouraged.  I want to quilt feathers in the border of my Mansfield Park basket quilt.

Here's part of my basket quilt.  I have about half of the block quilted and I would like to finish the quilting before we leave on our next trip.

 Next, below is my current Jo Morton's Little Women class project.  The next class is Tuesday, so I'm going to try to get this quilted by then.  Not sure how I will quilt it.

On my trip I worked on hand quilting this Cheddar Cheese & Crackers quilt.  I'm about 80% finished with it and I'm trying to work on it a little every day.

I know I'm nuts, but I have wanted to at least get started on the Gone to Texas quilt.  I will be making blocks in between other things.  The ones in this picture were pieced in the camper because I had cut some fabric ahead of time.

Here's a picture of the Gone to Texas quilt.  It seems like this is a "pioneer" quilt, so I'm trying to make it with "old" looking fabric - in other words, reproductions - so what else is new.

I have been busy this week making some play outfits for Abigail.  While I was in Florida I made her a couple of these tops and a cobblers' apron.  This time, I made some shorts to go with the tops, along with a couple extra shorts.

These shorts are made out of fabric from Guatemala.  Do any of you remember Jackie, the missionary from Guatemala?  She sent me this fabric and I thought it would make good play shorts.

 This baby afghan was found at a garage sale in Florida for $2, so I'm going to donate it to children's hospital.  It was new and made by a 92 year old woman.  The garage sale was to raise money for a missions trip and the lady holding the garage sale goes to the same church as my DS & DIL!  My DIL is hoping to go on the missions trip to India and then stay longer to spend time with her family.

Today I'm meeting some friends for lunch, so I better get going.