Author Archives: mlwilkie

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About mlwilkie

Software Developer, Mother, Wife with keen interest in art, design and crafts of all kinds.

Book Review Tuesday: Free Motion Quilting

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I have recently had the chance to attend one of Angela Walters’ class in person at Sewdown Nashville. It was fantastic. I wanted to continue practicing and growing this skill of Free-Motion Quilting.

Review

I already had in my growing library of books her book Free-Motion Quilting. I grabbed it and decided to start working through it.
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Title:  “Free Motion Quilting with Angela Walters”
Author:  Angela Walters
Publisher:  C & T Publishing
ISBN:  978-1-60705–535-8

This book has a great layout that builds on the knowledge you learn with each chapter. It starts with similar techniques as in her class however I was pleasantly surprised while the topic was the same, the patterns were different. Each design includes step by step instructions making it very easy to follow and practice.

The book includes circles, swirls, squares, lines, vines, arcs, and points. A great collection of designs are discussed.

My favorite section is in Section 3, in which Angela, helps you visualize how to use the designs in modern quilts. It provides great inspiration on how to combine different designs to highlight but complement the quilt.

I really enjoyed reading through this book as it was easy to follow which is perfect for a book that is an instructional guide and possible replacement/substitute for those who can’t attend a class.

Definitely a 4 out of 5.
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Project

My project is kind of different as it is a long-term project this time. I am committing to practice Free-Motion Quilting for 15 minutes every day from May 1st through May 31st. Practice…Practice…Practice. There are 4 main groupings of techniques in this book that fits perfectly with 4 weeks of May. You can see the daily progress on instagram @ ml_wilkie; and I will show you all a weekly recap on my blog right here.

This is where I am starting at:
Pebble_FMQ

and…Geometric_FMQ

I hope you can stop by and see the progress!!

Give-away

Giveaway time!! The winner will win a copy of Free Motion Quilting with Angela Walters and a pair of Machingers quilting gloves (recommended in Angela’s book and I am loving my new pair already!!).
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All you need to do is leave a comment on either what you would like to learn in FMQ or what is your favorite FMQ tip or design. There is a second chance to win if you are a follower, just leave a second comment. A winner will be chosen at random and announced next Tuesday, May 6th after 6pm.

A disclaimer, all reviews and opinions of the books reviewed will be mine, unless otherwise stated. Please note, I may not respond to all comments due to volume and bandwidth.

Linking up with Lee Over @ Freshly Pieced for WiP Wednesday.

Big News!!

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First off, I have moved Book Review Tuesday for this week to tomorrow, as I have an announcement today that I am so excited about!!

I managed to get my deadline in this month for ALYoF. This is important, as I finished my first blocks for my first Spoonflower class, I am teaching.

Today, the class “Modern Quilt Blocks with Michelle Wilkie” was announced.  Can you believe it, the class is free for those that register!! Here are the first 3 blocks for class 1 of the Sampler Quilt.

Spoonflower_Class1_Blocks

So, if you are in North Carolina and can come to Spoonflower, May 18th, you can register for the class here or from Spoonflower’s Greenhouse Facebook page. For those that are not close by a tutorial for these blocks will follow.

There will be 4 classes in total, each class covers the blocks in my sampler quilt design:
SqueekCrafts_Sampler_Quilt

Linking up for “A Lovely Year of Finishes” (see button on right), as this was my goal for April.

 

Bee participation and completed blocks

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My weekend, well Saturday, was spent catching up and hitting deadlines for the two online bees I am participating in.

First off, I finally finished the first of two blocks for my March Scrap-bee-licious bee.
March_Scrapbeelicious_Block

My stash bee blocks for April are completed. I did an angel block this month as well.
StashBeeBlock_April

I am at an interesting point with my participation in bees. I joined both the bees I am in, for two different reasons.

  • The Scrap-bee-licious bee is for friendship, as it is made of some of the US-based bloggers that participated in Plum and June’s New Blogger Let’s get acquainted blog hop. I do like the camaraderie of this bee!! Everyone is fantastic.
  • The other one, Stash bee, I joined to get new skills and see what blocks are added each month.

However, I was so frustrated and a little disgruntled this weekend – I did not want to spend my Saturday making these blocks. I have so many other projects, I wanted to spend time on MY projects. I know I should not have left them to the last minute – but that’s me too :-). Do you all feel like that? How do you balance the commitments of a bee with your other stuff?

Anyway, our guild had a bee today, the kind which is more of a free sew….I decided to reward myself and sew something I wanted to sew. No deadlines. No expectations. I was much happier!!

I am linking up with Alyce over @ Blossom Heart Quilts for Sew Cute Tuesday and Lorna over at Sew Fresh Quilts for Let’s bee social (see buttons on the right).