I’ve continued to practice free-motion quilting. Only a few sewing needles have paid the ultimate price. I’ve worked up the nerve to try practicing on the spare print for Lib’s quilt.

I originally made six of each of the prints for this quilt since that’s how many I got when I cut the larger piece of Rives BFK paper up. I only needed 5 of the green and 4 of the white/silver but I figured it always pays to have spares. One of the spares already was used up for practice and became a postcard for the Encaustic Conference. So that left me with one last one to play with now that I know better what I’m doing:

I started out in the upper right using the thread that I’ve been using all along and decided it was too heavy. It was damaging the paper too much so I switched over to a lighter weight embroidery thread. I proceeded clockwise from there and tweaked the tension a bit as I went.

There are endless patterns with free motion quilting. What I went with here is called echoing, where you basically echo or mimic the pattern of the material. It seemed appropriate for the print.

I think I’m ready to remove the training wheels. Wish me luck and pray for the needles.