katydidkg

Great use of practice piece. FMQ is alot of practice, keep up the good work.

debcavan

I love to FMQ. That is cool that you are going to use them. I have been told that you should keep your first attempts so you can go back and see how far you have come in a year or so.

tkhooper

Thank you all I'm enjoying it now that I've gotten started. I used up all the room on those two so I took a couple of days off to get room to cut and sandwich more practice pieces. This next one I'm going to draw on tear-a-way paper and then sew. Cross your fingers for me.

solstice3

I need to follow your example and practice!

mjhaess

Good idea...

tkhooper

It's surprising how much difference there is in just the first month. It helps that I'm working on small pieces. I'll have to get a picture of the sewing machine mat now that it is all made up.

oksewglad

The only way to get better is to practice...and that's my problem....

Oh a nice way to use up stash, too.

What a great idea to make a sewing mat. With your smaller throat space have you thought about making your quilts with the QAYG method?

Annz

Very interesting quilting.

tkhooper

Thank you for the tip about leaving a larger batting so I have something to hold on to. That will help a lot. I finally had someone explain why I needed the feed dogs down in a manner I could understand. It's what was messing up my side to side movement because the dogs were still trying to go up the fabric. I'm having better luck now with the movements that require more control. I took a couple of days off because I was busy and when I went back to it the foot speed and hand movement were way off again. I need to be more consistant.

Thanks for keeping up with the thread. I hope some of you will show your FMQ too.

tkhooper

The very first quilt I ever made was QAYG also completely hand sewn. I think when I do the crazy quilt on my list I will definitely try that technique. But as long as I am working with low loft batting the rolling gives me plenty of room in the throat. But then the largest I am currently doing are about 34 inches wide and 60 inches long.