WIP Wednesday: Machine Quilting

Quilting:

Two years ago I was privileged to take a series of classes from a Master Quilter, the sister of a friend and neighbor. I was blessed to have most of the materials I needed already, and knew that I would probably never have such an opportunity again. One of the last classes introduced us to machine quilting. We made a quilt sandwich with two squares of muslin and a square of cotton batting, and then were instructed to try our hand at free quilting on the machine. I had purchased a darning foot for my Bernina sewing machine, and did my best:

  As you can see, my first attempts at free-hand machine quilting were rather lacking in quality.  Since I have this desire to complete several quilting projects in the future, hopefully this year, I want to improve my abilities when it comes to machine quilting.  So, my project and goal for this week has been to practice.  I selected two fabric pieces from my rather limited selection to create a new quilt sandwich:

This piece has a variety of straight lines and geometric shapes to help me practice quilting in straight lines, supposedly a more difficult feat than the free-handed quilting.  



This other piece has a wonderful assortment of fun curved and zigzagy  shapes to help me practice more free-handed type quilting.

So, for the past several evenings I have been playing with my new quilt sandwich, and hopefully learning something in the process.  The question of the week, how long will it take before I feel comfortable and confident enough to tackle my real quilt project?

Reading:

I have completed reading The Guardian by Gerald Lund.   I bought Family Size by Maria Hoagland for my Kindle and read it in one day. 

Writing:

Blog posts and letters to family. 

And that's it folks!