I Am On A Roll

I have great news to share!  January is almost through and I have finished my UFO, Color Palette Challenge, and my free motion quilting.  I feel I have had a very productive month.  

If you have checked my blog before I have been working on the Color Palette Challenge, and here it is finished, quilted and bound!

 Thanks to everyone who commented on my earlier dilemma with the flying geese border.  I love the decision I made, but I think any of them would have worked out fine.  

I also gave you a sneak peek at the quilting.  I would love to learn how to machine quilt, but I didn't think I could ever learn how to do it on my home machine.  Once I started it was really fun, and fulfilling.  Here are a few close-ups.    

The center medallion was quilted around the applique, then echo quilted waves throughout the rest of the background with a matching thread.  

It was so much easier than I thought it would be.  I just took it slow and stopped when I wasn't sure where to go next.  The overall quilting looks pretty good, but if I look close I can see some spots where I would improve.  

In the corner blocks I decided to try a feather.  I absolutely love quilted feathers!  This was my attempt. It is kind of hard to see because of the background pattern but it's not too shabby.  Again I found that if I just slowed down it was a lot easier.  

The flying geese gave me a lot of grief.  I tried quilting one side and didn't like it so I ended up ripping it out.  I do not like unpicking quilting!  It takes forever.  I finally went with another echo in each center and nothing in the white part.  The black borders I tried a half feather design.  The border is 1 inch but I found it pretty easy to stay within the lines most of the time.  Both were quilted with a burgundy thread that matched the darkest burgundy fabric in the quilt.

I am participating in the Free Motion Quilting Challenge and our design to practice quilting this month was leaves.  I watched the videos and checked out some of the other participants but I just wasn't sure if the leaf pattern fit my quilt.  I decided to go with an echoed leaf.  It was a great learning experience for me.  Sometimes it was hard to get all of the leaves to fit within each other and to keep the quilting even.   But it was a lot of fun.  Again it was quilted with the burgundy thread.  (Please excuse the washed out picture)

The best part about this is I am able to enjoy it everyday!  It feels so good to get something accomplished.  I can't wait for February to see what I will be working on next.  I already have big plans!

I will be linking up with Design Wall Monday with Judy,  Sew CalGal Free Motion Quilting Challenge this week, and the Color Palette Challenge when it is available.