A Very Berry Giveaway!

Very Berry Handmade is having a giveaway Resolved to Sew -2012.  I'm resolved to give myself more time to sew - PERIOD!  I want more completed projects and LESS UFOs!  I also want to be sure I take more pictures and keep up with my blog posts - something I have never been good at.  But it will help me look back over my accomplishments and see my progress, so far I have been off to a good start.  I have 3 BOMs I am doing, and will only commit to be in 3 swaps for the year - my first one will be completed and mailed the beginning of February.  I also want to do at least one applique project this year, a skill I would love to perfect.

Go over and check out the giveaway - there's still time to enter.  I've got my eye on this lovely FQ bundle from Erin McMorris's Summersault from the Backstitch.  I want to touch it - I can already see it all cut up and ready to sew!  I got a disease or something - LOL!

January projects

I'm horrible at free motion quilting, so I decided to join the challenges to gain some helpful tips, and give me plenty of opportunity to practice.  For January, SewCalGal's Free Motion Quilting Challenge has instructor Frances Moore showing us a leaf motif - which she effortlessly stitches (like a floating butterfly) in every direction (while talking/creating the video)!  In my dreams!!  Ha - no, I know Rome wasn't built in a day, but BOY! do I got some practicing to do!  After drawing, and drawing, (and drawing) the leaves on paper, I've progressed to getting them onto fabric with my machine.  Wonky, lopsided, sometimes jagged - but they ARE on the fabric! LOL!  I'm not accustomed to pushing/sliding the fabric around - it feels so awkward.  I have a tendency to want to grab the fabric on both sides of the needle and "steer".  I guess eventually I'll settle into some kind of rhythm and get it.  Here I'm doing the all over leaf, two border-type styles of the leaf, and a leaf with the vein going straight through and into the next leaf.  PRACTICE! PRACTICE! PRACTICE! :)

I also tried a little stippling from Leah Day's Free Motion Quilt Project.  Gotta keep at it to get my lines more "fluid" and less jerky.

With both trials I kept losing my bobbin thread??? I don't know why this kept happening.  It wasn't breaking, my needle would just stop picking it up like skipped thread.  I would stay in the same spot and take a few stitches and then it would pick it up and I could keep going.  If you have the solution for this PLEASE tell me what I'm doing wrong.  Thanks!

And last, but by no means least is my first BOM project for 2012.  This block is for the BOM for Berry Basket Quilters Guild.  I made this one, and I'm going to make another one from a stash of black and white fabrics I have.

A Little Bit of Sewing . . .

First project of the year!  Had a little time to squeeze in for sewing today.  (in my Martha voice) "That's a Good Thing".  Working on my 16" blocks for the "Polka Dot Party" block swap over on the Missouri Quilt Co Forum.  There are 28 participants, we all have to use the black/white polka fabrics, and then add one tone-on-tone color to our block.  I'm excited to see this when I get all the blocks back.  Lots of great colors everyone's been working on!

I also made this little 10 1/2" block for BINGO!  I'm visiting the Berry Basket Quilters this evening, and we will need to bring our blocks to play - sounds like a fun night out! :)