This weekend, I attended my first quilting class! Mary Palmer was giving a class at the Limerick Quilt Centre on Free Motion quilting. It was great fun! We saw lots of inspirational work at the beginning of the day. Mary had brought a huge pile of quilts for Show and Tell and talked us through the design process and quilting choices. They were all so different and some were quilted on a teeny tiny scale!
Mary helped us set up our machines, ensure tension looked good (something I struggle with on my own at home!), gave us lots of tips and introduced us to FMQ designs like loops, hearts and flowers and out of the 12 panels most of us got 7 done. These are my squares:
We were sent home with the instructions to practice, practice, practice! From the few quilts I free motion quilted and my previous practice sessions at home I’ve been working on a much larger scale.
Figure of 8 is probably my new favourite design, though I wobble on starts and stops! I have now added waves to my skill set too.For our practice panels we were working in a space 8” square. I found the smaller scale gave me much more confidence with FMQ and I am determined to practice more and get spirals nailed down next. After all, I have 5 blank squares left to fill up!
I can highly recommend this Free Motion Quilting Class, Mary was lovely and her quilts were fantastic as learning tools and inspiration. We all had great fun, chatting the day away while practising what we were taught and the day flew by!
We were advised to use what we learned on a small project like a cushion. Don't think I'll have a problem with that one!
