Pfaff Dynamic Spring Motion 6D foot

Unfortunately, Pfaff does not make an open-toe Dynamic Spring Motion foot.  As you can see the circle is tilted upward in the front, this design is great for embroidery but makes it difficult to see when free motion quilting.

 

I had the front of the circle cut out, then sanded smooth and I applied several coats of nail polish to the ends.  Behold my open-toe dynamic free motion quilting foot.

Check out the visibility now!

 I'm still practicing echo feathers.

 

 

 I'm really loving this new foot.

 

This is the front side.

This is back side.

 

 Stitch close-ups of back and front.

I am also working on a linked echo feather border on the outside border of a baby quilt.  Happy quilting all.

Birthday Roses from my hubby.

 I took these photos with my iphone.

 I got a beautiful romantic card and he bought us champagne!

We're going out to The Keg Steakhouse & Bar for dinner tonight!  Awwww my cup runneth over!

Paying it Forward - free home made gift!

Paying it forward, is doing a little something to say thank you, and gifting it to have it snowball.

To play, you must leave a comment to this post on or before Tuesday February 14, 2012.  On Wednesday, February 15,  I'll randomly draw three names, then I'll send these three people a hand-made gift. In so doing, the three winners also agree to pay it forward, and send out three hand-made gifts, too.

I responded to Margie's pay it forward post and received these lovely hand-made gifts today.

A pot holder, complete with mitered corners.  Very nice.

A  little pin cushion that is perfect for travel as the pins stick in the middle between card board, quilt batting, and fabric.  Margie has a tutorial for making this little beauty.  As luck would have it, purple is my favourite colour.

And this very pretty green bookmark.  I love all my hand-made gifts.  The tatting is beautiful.  Thank you very much Margie. ~dancing around the room with glee~~

 

Everyone is welcome to play.  However, please don't be anonymous as I will have no way to reach you if you win.  I knit dishcloths, sew tea towels, dinner napkins, shopping bags, hair towels, kitchen towels and other cool things.  Who knows? I might even make fancy pin cushions now that Margie showed me how. 

Good luck, I look forward to reading your comments and making gifts for you.

FMQ Tutorial, by Diane Gaudynski “Echo Feather Plume”

I'm participating in 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge hosted by Sew Cal Gal.   February's design is feathers by Diane Gaudynski.  In free motion quilting,  feathers have been my nemesis for a long time.  I so admired them on the quilts of others and failed miserably in my attempts to replicate a feather with my sewing machine.

I'm what Diane Gaudynski calls "feather challenged". 

I have always admired Diane's feathers and often told myself, "I want to quilt feathers like hers when I grow up".  Her tutorial is extremely well written and photographed.  It is excellent!  I read over the instructions several times and studied the pictures.

 Then I practiced drawing feathers.

Drawing feathers and tear drops.  I made a whole page of just tear drops in various directions and sizes.

 

 I tried to keep the feathers tear drop-shaped and the lines smooth.

 I practiced more.

 

 

 

 I added stems and extra plumes.

 

 I drew approximately 80 pages of feathers.

 

 I'm posting these drawings to show my feather shapes got better the more I practiced.

 Finally, I was ready to add the sewing machine.

Again I practiced on several scraps before doing my quilt block on my challenge quilt.

This is the front side.

The back side is unbleached 100% cotton muslin, the purple vareigated thread is 100% polyester, the pink is Coats trilobal 100% polyester embroidery thread.

 

 

 

 

Enough practice time to quilt my block.

I used my Pfaff Creative 2 sewing machine, with a dynamic spring motion quilting foot, dropped feed dogs, set the stitch length to zero, a straight stitch needle plate and 80/12 Schmetz universal needle.

 The white side is the back.

 

While quilting this block, I decided that sewing the feathers was way more fun than echoing so I added more plumes as I echoed.

 

 

 This is the finished block.  I'm delighted with it. 

 

 

 

 Close ups of top stitching

 Happy quilting all.