TGIFF! and Bloggers' Quilt Festival - What the FMQAYGQAL?

Taking a moment
to smell the lilacs

Hi all! Welcome to those coming with the Bloggers' Quilt Festival and TGIFF! I'm M-R (stands for Michèle-Renée) and I live in Ottawa, Canada. I've been quilting for about 14 years steadily, but I made my first quilt in university. I've been blogging for a year (it was my blogiversary yesterday!) and have really enjoyed 'meeting' so many kind and supportive people.

Playing goalie

This is my second time participating in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival. The quilt I'm going to share with you is one I just finished on Wednesday. This was done for the QAYGFMQAL at Quokka Quilts to practice free motion quilting skills so I call it What the FMQAYGQAL? Okay, it's the only name I can come up with right now and since there were a few f-bombs muttered here and there when I messed up and had to unpick, I'm thinking that this name may be appropriate for this quilt, at least for the time being. The QAL started in January and we did two free motion quilting blocks a week. A great pace and lots of fun! And most importantly, flexible enough for a non-pattern/direction/instruction follower like me. He he.

Playing goalie backward

For those who have been following along for a while, I ended up going with white for the sashing so that the front there wouldn't be competition for the FMQ in the blocks and white for the back because I thought it made the white stitching stand out more. I couldn't get the idea of the Bright Remix rainbow stripe by Ann Kelle of Robert Kaufman out of my head though so I tracked it down and saw that it was perfect for the binding. I just love the pop it gives around the edge.

While I may have lessened my fear of using white, I have not lessened my fear of having white around. I'm trying to figure out where I can put it so that I can see it, but my munchkins can't. Ceiling?

Catching some rays
by the Rideau River

I think this is my best quilt yet in terms of free motion quilting. I may not be able to pick favourites with my kids, but I definitely can when it comes to quilts and this is now one of them! The quilt measures  41" by 62".




Some close up photos of my favourite blocks (a lot of these are from Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project):

If you'd like to see some close-ups of my blocks or find out more info about them, you can visit these past posts (I'm quite gifted when it comes to post titles, aren't I?):

• What the FMQAYGQAL?
• What the FMQAYGQAL? Again
• What the FMQAYGQAL? Update
• What the FMQAYGQAL? Part 4
• What the FMQAYGQAL? Part Cinq
• What the FMQAYGQAL? My Own Adventure

As today is also TGIFF!, I'm linking up with our host Pat of ColorMeQuilty this week. She's got an awesome block for QuiltCon and her Bloggers' Quilt Festival quilt too. Check it out and feel free to link up one of your own recent finishes.





Thanks for stopping by! If I'm MIA on this blog over the next couple of days, it's because I'll be checking out all the inspirational quilts at TGIFF! and the Bloggers Quilt Festival. Have a great weekend!

[Edited: I almost forgot that this quilt is one of my finishes for the Finish-A-Long over at Quilter in The Gap!]

What the FMQAYGQAL? My Own Adventure

The last row of the FMQAYGQAL with Laura at Quokka Quilts is Choose Your Own Adventure. Fun!


Before I get to what I did with the last four blocks, here is the border I did with Flame Flower. Very pleased with it!

Back of Flame Flower:

Sun Medallion - I love going to Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Project site (her button is on my left hand sidebar) to look at quilt designs. This is her Sun Medallion. Okay, it doesn't look a lot like hers because I mucked it up in a few spots, but I think it kind of looks like a flower anyways so we're going with it!

Back of Sun Medallion:

Poinsettia - Also from Leah Day's site. This is one she has in her Advanced section. I did it! And mine actually looks kind of like hers. Love, love, love! I also find it kind of looks like the Truffala trees from The Lorax.

Back of Poinsettia

Sawblades - Also from Leah's site. Getting the c's and u's consistent was tricky, but once again the final effect of this motif is really the space between the stitch lines rather than the stitch lines. Love the texture of this one!

Back of sawblades:

Shark Fins: This is one that Quilt Jane showed on Laura's Choose Your Own Adventure post. It looked like fun and I thought this one would be a good one to try to see if I could get consistent rows of motifs. Not over the moon with my interpretation with this one, but still pretty happy with it.

Back of Shark Fins:

Here's a photo of all the completed blocks on my design wall. I'm playing with the layout and trying to figure out the sashing colour.

White: It would basically look like this:

Black and white stripe:

Black and white swirl:

I guess another alternative is a rainbow stripe. Hmmm, what do you think? I'd love some advice!

Hope you are having a great weekend!

What the FMQAYGQAL? Part Cinq

What a fun challenge these blocks were! This is the last block of row 4 and all of row 5. We have only one row left of the FMQAL with Quokka Quilts! I've been thinking about the sashing - white or white and black stripe? Anyway, before I get too far ahead of myself, here are...

Fireballs: I was definitely anxious about trying this one. Once I got going though, it was sooo fun!

Fireballs - Front

Fireballs - Back

Feathers: I've done feathers a couple of times, but I still find them a challenge to get the plumes nicely shaped and even on both sides.

Feathers - Front

Feathers - Back

Geometric Spirals: This one was also scary, but so much fun once I got into it. Even right to the end, I struggled with turning around in the centre. I love the texture this design has.

Geometric Spirals - Front

Geometric Spirals - Back

Flame Flower: Woo hoo! This one is not quite done. I haven't figured out what I want to do in the white border yet.

Flame Flower - Front

Flame Flower - Back

Feather Wreath: Never tried feathers in a circle before, but it turned out okay. It's tricky trying to get the feathers to meet together well, but hopefully those feathers aren't too noticeable. For the border, I did a two or three petal flower with an echo or two as a filler. I hope it complements the feather wreath.

Feather Wreath - Front

Feather Wreath - Back

Because I'm getting itchy to see this finished, I thought I'd play do a little collage of the completed blocks to date to see what this quilt might look like. Wanna see?

Front - Guess the white balance on my camera is a little off, eh? 

Back - Fun!

Linking up with Laura and the gang over at Quokka Quilts.

Happy Thursday!

What the FMQAYGQAL? Part 4

It was a bit of a rough weekend here (stomach bug/food poisoning which reinjured my back) so I don't have a Modern Block today. I did, however, finish the next three blocks of the FMQAL with Quokka Quilts before I got sick so I'll share those with you instead.

Rose: I'm very pleased with how this one turned out. I did a lot of roses in my Tangled Garden quilt so I'm pretty familiar with this design. I decided to continue the leaves all the way out though instead of adding a third element. I know, I'm such a rebel, but I like the look of the rose in a bunch of leaves.

Front

Back

McTavishing: I'm pretty happy with how this turned out too, especially since the McTavishing movement still feels so odd to me. I also love that the photo of the back doesn't show that there are some little spaces between some of the stitching that it supposed to travel right over another line. I think that will resolve itself when the quilt is washed. 

Front

Back

Spiral Tree: I really love this design! I added spirals in the white border.

Front

Back

Linking up with Laura and the FMQAL gang at Quokka Quilts!

Happy Monday all!

Featured on TN&TN Plus What the FMQAYGQAL? Update...Again

Guess what? I'm being featured today over at The Needle and Thread Network! The Needle and Thread Network is a great site for Canadian fibre artists and creative stitchers and sewists. Now I'm not sure how much I fit that category, but I am a regular and enthusiastic participant in WIP Wednesdays. LOL. I love checking out my Canadian cohorts' work -- such an inspiring variety of needle arts and amazing talent.

Before you run right over there to check out my feature though, I've got my FMQAYGQAL progress to share. Although I was ready early for TGIFF! this week (which is at Quokka Quilts today so go check it out and link up!), I'm late to the FMQAYGQAL party, among many other things. Go figure.

Here are the next four designs of the FMQAYGQAL also over at Quokka Quilts. We're at the midway point and I'm keen to see this all together. I think it's going to look very cool when it's all done and together.

Block 1: Ocean Current - I definitely struggled with this one. I don't think I did some of the swirls big enough. 

Back - Ocean Current

Block 2: Leafy vine

Back - Leafy vine

Block 3: Landscape - This one looks better photographed than it does in real life. I noticed at a number of points that where there's good thread buildup on the front, there's some space between the thread in the back. You can really see it below, but did anyone else find that too? I'm thinking that that spacing may disappear when this is washed so I'm not to fussed about it.

Back - Landscape

Block 4: Sea Oats - This one was funny. I started from the right and moved to the left and found that my sea oats started out good and got worse as I went. Oh well, at least the sea oats that I really don't like are on the white. ;)

Back - Sea Oats

Ensemble - Front:

Ensemble - Back:

Okay, now you can go check out The Needle and Thread Network and Quokka Quilts. :)

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!