Free Motion Quilting - Butterflies & Flowers

This month's tutorial was by Ann Fahl.  She gave us lots of excellent information.  Then she left the practice part up to our imaginations!  I loved it.  First off, I didn't realize when I took this challenge that I would not only improve my  free motion quilting, but also become a better artist.  As with last month's echo feathers I doodled designs on paper.

I liked these flowers just fine, except they needed something more.

So I added a round of echoing.

Still needed more pizazz!  In February 2011, Jane did a post on free motion quilting butterflies complete with a video on her blog Sew Create It.

I tossed in a few butterflies!  In all I drew about 30 pages of flowers and/or butterflies.

Tried a few heart-shaped leaves but didn't like them.

 

Didn't really like the butterflies alone either.

The butterflies and flowers together was the design I was looking for.

 

Onto my practice sandwich. I don't usually mark my quilts because I love the freedom of meandering in any direction.  Like Ann Fahl,  I'm dancing with thread as well.

The purple solid colour is Coats 100% polyester serger thread.

The yellow is Coats trilobal 100% polyester embroidery thread.  I love this thread because it has a very nice sheen to it.  However,  this thread wasn't colourful enough .

The variegated thread is 100% polyester Rainbow Colours Serger Thread imported by  H.A. Kidd and Company.

The quilt sandwich is 100% cotton green top side, white bottom side and 80% cotton 20% polyester batting called Warm and Natural.

I like the variegated purple, blue and pink thread for butterflies and flowers the most.

 

 

 I was so impressed with Ann Fahl's tutorial, that I bought her books Dancing with Thread and Colouring with Thread.

This is my Pfaff Creative 2 sewing machine with its modified Dynamic Spring Motion 6D foot, a Bernina 70 needle and straight stitch needle plate.

The feed dogs are dropped and stitch length is set to zero.

 

The cream or off white colour side is the back. 

 

 

This is the finished block on the sample quilt.

 

 

I think it has all kinds of pizazz!

 

Below is the back of the sample quilt.

 

This design would look very nice on a baby quilt.  Your comments are always welcome! Happy quilting!

Husqvarna 6570 Accessories & thick fabric

Ruby my Husqvarna 6570 was up for sale.  I received this email:

Hello,

I'm seriously interested in this sewing machine. Can you tell me what accessories it comes with and the amps?I'd like it to be capable of sewing through several layers of canvas and denim. Is it double needle capable?

Thank you

Sorry, the motor is internal and I do not know if the size is written on it.  These are the accessories that come with it:

There are two darning feet because I bought an opening toe one for free motion quilting.

Also included are 14 bobbins, one twin needle. six Schmetz universal needles in three different sizes and three Inspira needles.

Eight cams with stand. The cams are used to make fancy decorative and stretch stitches.

I bought the manual on-line as a pdf, then printed it off.  It is in a binder with page protectors.

 

 

 

Yes it is capable of sewing with twin needles.

This is not an industrial sewing machine.  For a domestic sewing machine the Husqvarna 6570 has excellent piercing power.  Certainly it will handle some heavy duty sewing, but I wouldn't sew thick fabrics all day long every day as this machine was not designed to be used that way.  Now for the fun part, just how many layers of denim can Ruby sew through?

This is heavy duty denim thread. I used it in the needle (Schmetz 90/14 Jeans) and the bobbin.

Drum roll please......

Six for sure, because I did it! Maybe seven or eight, but it would be difficult to get that many layers under the presser foot.  I'm holding the sample up to show the stitches on the bottom side.

These are the stitches on the top side.  Ruby had no trouble sewing through them.

I don't have any canvas, so I used garment leather from an old motorcycle jacket.

This is four layers of leather using the same denim needle and denim thread.  Normally when I sew leather I use a leather needle and upholstery thread because I think it is stronger than denim thread and not as thick.

Again this Husqvarna sewed through the layers without any difficulty.

 

I'm holding the backside up to show the bottom stitches.

If anyone reading this knows the size of the motor would you please comment or email me?  Happy sewing all.