FMQ Friday

I had one quilting goal this week– get to work on the brick quilt. Here’s the top:

It’s supposed to be a Christmas gift, and I knew that I wanted to do a lot of fun FMQ in all that negative space. So when the kiddos got sick over Thanksgiving weekend I got a little stressed that this was going to take a lot longer than I thought it would.

So while I was snuggling with them, I came up with a plan. The negative space would be wavy and FMQ, and the bricks would be straight and structured. It wasn’t until Thursday that I had a chance to practice, but by then I had a plan:

Swirly clouds for the sky.

I had picked a taupe-colored thread for the quilting so that the stitches (and mistakes) would blend, but I had no idea how hard it would be to see the stitches!

It was tricky, but I was really happy with the first round of swirls.

See how different the look can be just based on fabric and thread color? This is more about the texture than the stitches.

After I made a few clumps of swirls to represent clouds, I put on my walking foot and made some wavy “wind” to go around it. (I was quilting at night and had to use some sideways light from the closet to take pictures.)

I’m making great progress, but this is physical work, so I’m trying not to over do it. Here’s how far I got:

Man, am I sick of taupe. I am really looking forward to quilting the bricks.