Feathers Free Motion Quilt Project

If you have been following this blog, you'll know that I have neuropathy from the chemotherapy drugs I received.  The neuropathy surfaces for me as numbness in my hands and feet.  I'm grateful for that as I could be burning pain as it is for so many people who have received Taxol or Abraxane in their fight against cancer.   I have no feeling in my finger tips and my little finger and ring finger of my left hand (I'm left handed) are completely numb.  This causes me to not have great fine motor skills in my hands, and my free-motion quilting suffers because of it.

Thus, I decided that the best way to handle this was to re-learn machine quilting and just practice, practice, practice.  That's the key to good quilting (and almost everything else) anyway, so when Maria Elkins put up SewCalGal's challenge on her website, I joined in as well.

Each month, a renowned free-motion quilter gives tutorials and has us practice an element of free motion quilting.  This month was Diane Gaudinsky.

Usually, I would use the same or similar color thread when practicing on muslin because you won't see the mistakes quite as badly, but since I knew I was going to have to put it up on the blog, I did it in a variagated embroidery thread in the top and Superior's "Sew Fine" (love that stuff) in the bobbin.

I'm lousy at echoing.  The top piece is the sample I did this week.  The sample at left is doodles I did with Shirley Stutz in a class I took with her in I think about 2006 or maybe 2007.  I did a much better job there.  Shirley's a great teacher and I enjoyed every minute of it.  I was also using my beloved Bernina 153 which I sold to a friend when I upgraded to the 440.....and Carol...if you're reading...please remember I get first dibs if you ever decide to get rid of it...that machine was superb and beats the pants off my 440.  So...I'm working on quilting...working on drawing....and hoping that just maybe I'll be able to improve.