Free Motion Machine Quilting

I got my darning foot!  Then I discovered that the feed dogs cannot be lowered on my sewing machine.  I would have to remove them entirely, and I need those for piecing.  So I used the old masking tape trick after setting the stitch length to 0.

After practicing on scraps, I went ahead and tried a meandering design on my latest table runner.

I am a beginner, remember.  There were a lot of times when I couldn't get the fabric to go through the machine at a consistant speed.  My machine is not great for this kind of quilting.  But it got the job done.  This runner was done with all the scraps from my patchwork quilt, the first one I ever completed.

I am going to get in some more practice with this darning foot once I start on my autumn runners.  First, I'm busy with the cowgirl quilt.  Got a ways to go before that one's done.  But I'm getting there.

Simple Machine Quilting

I got tired of hand-quilting, and decided to try doing something simple on my machine that didn't require a darning foot, which I don't have.

So I threw together some scrap blues to also test out spray basting, something I love for small projects.  For quilting it, I just did some crooked lines all over.  So here's my first pieced table runner.

The only thing I bought for this project was the fabric adhesive spray, and the backing.



I'm really proud of how this turned out.  My binding stitches are getting a bit better, and I love the color.  In fact, I was so proud, I cut a new table runner in the exact same pattern with my scrap greens and purples.  But I won't do this type of quilting again.  The crooked lines acheived the look I was going for, but it was SUCH a tedious process!