OCTOBER FMQ CHALLENGE AND MOUNTAIN TRAIL

SewCalGal has been hosting a Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) challenge all year, so I am submitting October's entries.  Teri Lucas is the quilting expert for this month and she gave a lesson with lots of ideas.  You can find out more about Teri and the challenge by clicking on the SewCalGal link.

My first practice piece was done on muslin with wool batting.  I used a few different threads:  the dark red was Essential Pro Turkey Red 70/3 that I got from Connecting Threads;  the yellow is Isacord 40; the variegated orange/green/yellow is Signature size 40 cotton; and variegated blue is Gutermann 100% cotton 50.  I used Essential Pro in the bobbin.

For my second and final piece, I used some shiny grey fabric (don't know what it is - some kind of satin?) and the yellow Isacord thread.  I like the way the yellow shows up on the grey and I really enjoyed quilting the nautilus shells and the pebbles - it was fun!  Thanks for all the pointers, Teri!

Next, I just finished my QAL from Lori:  Mountain Trail reproduction quilt.  At first, I was thinking about hand quilting it (very briefly), but then I thought that I would like to have feathers in the rows and hand quilting them would take a lot of time (which I don't have), so I machine quilted it yesterday with feathers in the rows and in the 2 borders, I quilted a Swirl Scroll from Angela Walters book, Free -Motion Quilting.  I also used that border in a table runner that I made and found that it is quite easy.

close-up of quilted feathers

close-up of swirl scroll border

View of fabric and quilting on back.  The fabric is Jo Morton fabric that I had left from my Jo's Little Women class last year.

It's hanging in my front hall above my desk.

Do any of you have this pattern or know where to get it?  Barb is looking for it and can't find it anywhere.  If you know where to get it, please contact Barb through her blog.

Some of my storage shelves came down in my guest room, so that bed is piled with linens, fabrics, items I have bought for gifts, etc. etc.  What a mess!  Hopefully, DH can get it fixed soon.  He is at the hardware store right now.  

MOUNTAIN TRAILS

This morning I decided I wanted to get busy on Lori's quilt along named Mountain Trail.  She had already finished all the steps for it, so I was a few weeks behind because of our trip.  I got all 20 blocks finished and up on my design "door."  This is the 3rd QUA of Lori's that I have participated in.  Thanks, Lori!

This week I listened to American Patchwork and Quilting Radio and heard an interview of  Jennifer Paganelli.  I was impressed by the interview and looked up her web site.  She is a fabric and pattern designer, so I decided to order an epattern from her.  You can see what I ordered here.  I received the pattern by email and when I looked it over I was VERY impressed.  I have never seen a pattern with instructions as good as this one.  I made me think of my DIL who is starting to learn to sew and she wanted me to help her make a tunic.  The instructions for that one were deplorable!  Anyone who didn't know much about sewing would never be able to figure it out.  I'm going to tell my DIL about Jennifer's patterns.  I hope you will check them out as well.  These are patterns for clothing - for women and girls.  Each pattern has all the sizes included.

Yesterday I received a 60% off coupon for JoAnn's, so I thought this would be a good time to go and get fabric for my new tunic.  Well, as most of you know, the coupon is only good on a regular priced item.  I looked at the fabric and the only thing that I liked for the tunic was $12.99 fabric marked for 30% off, so that would make it $9.00 per yard.  That wasn't low enough for me, so I decided I would be better off using a 50% off coupon when the good fabric wasn't on sale.

I decided to look around and see if there is something else I can use the 60% off coupon on.  Then I remembered that I needed a new ironing board cover (see below).  And I saw some perfect fabric for it - a nice heavy duty muslin type, so I got to use the coupon after all.

Ironing board fabric

One of the charity projects for my guild is to make burial gowns for premature babies to be donated to children's hospital.  I got this tiny rosebud fabric at a garage sale and used it to make 17 of the little burial gowns and caps.  I just have to attach ribbons on them.

Hope you have a good weekend.