A Little More Free-Motion Quilting

It's the last day of the month in the evening.  How's that for leaving it to the last minute.  I love how swirls look when quilted.  I like the puff that the rounded areas create throughout a background.  I especially like it when it is done with a tighter pattern and small circles pop out here and there.  The Jester's Hat that Wendy Sheppard taught for this month's challenge hosted by SewCalGal has that kind of pattern.   Here are a couple of practice doodles I created using the Jester's Hat motif.

My earlier doodles included more swirls than hat tips.

I started getting the hang of the hat with leaves in the center.

I found it a little difficult to quilt evenly.  This will take a little more practice.

I really enjoy reading Wendy Sheppard's blog called Ivory Spring.  She has some great tutorials.  Thank you Wendy and SewCalGal for hosting these tutorials.

August FMQ Challenge

Wendy Sheppard of Ivory Spring is the tutor for the month of August in Sew Cal Gal's Free-Motion Quilting Challenge.  In this challenge, Wendy shows how to create a Jester's Hat design with a leaf icon added.  Here are a couple of practice doodles that I created a while ago.  Love how smooth this is to do.  It feels very natural.

I used this design for the background on my Billie Holiday piece and added some leaves and musical notes.  I used Coats and Clark Dual Duty for the top and bobbin so that I wouldn't get any pop up showing on the dark background fabric.  The thread colour is dark green.  I was going to use a dark grey or black to match the background but I thought that if it blends in too well, I won't be able to see where I am going as I stitch.

Jester's Hat with leaves and feathers added.

Can you spot the musical notes symbols?

This was so fun to stitch.  Since I completed this quilting a couple months before August, I won't be able to submit it for the challenge, but it fits in so well with the techniques that Wendy teaches and it's nice to see adaptations.  See what everyone else is doing for August at Sewcalgal.