Friday night WIP

I don't really do New Years' resolutions - something about setting myself up to fail before I've even started the year - but one of my 'would like to' for 2013 would be to improve my free motion quilting. As a confirmed fabric obsessive,  I think that quilts are beautiful on their own - my mum calls them fabric art - but there is something about free motion quilting done well, that makes me feel - I want that!! I want to be able to create that for myself.

Tula Pink 'The Birds and the Bees' star quilt. Finished size approx 62" square.

I started this simple star lap quilt during my Christmas holiday from work, solely then as an apprentice piece for free motion quilting and quilting techniques. I accepted that I may totally mess the whole thing up in the process of learning something new, and that would be ok. (Sorry Tula, love love love your fabrics!)

So far, I've practiced spirals, bordering blocks, feathers, wavy lines and fill patterns. It's been fun. Really, really fun. It's absolutely nowhere near perfect, the quilt top has stretched and puckered in places, and to be completely honest some of my feathers look more like the fish skeltons from the Charley Says adverts of the early 1970's. (Yes, yes I am old enough to remember them, and if you follow the link, stay with the poor animation to the end to see the fish!)

I'm hoping to get it finished this weekend, and then I've only got oooh, another three completed quilt tops to construct. Like I said, obsessive.