Hello! I have been a bad blogger; I am going to do my best to be more consistent. To be honest I’ve experienced a lot of glitches with this site that have made blogging more time intensive. I don’t know what’s wrong but suspect it’s more than one thing. But I won’t place all of the blame there; I own the lion’s share.

I have admired the ease and artistry exhibited by the talented FMQ’ers out there, Angela Walters and Leah Day to name only two. I lack their natural talent so for me, it’s all about putting in the time-repetition is the name of the game. Here are a few photos; I share them with some regret as they pale in comparison to the pros but I think it’s important to be honest about where we all are on the journey that has no destination!

I was truly stunned during my test drive of the Regalia when it handled the holographic glitter thread so beautifully. It’s so fussy and uncooperative in my other machines. You’ll have to zoom in to catch some glints of light and the fern pattern.

The other thread that has given me fit after fit in my Crescendo and Accomplish is the monofilament thread. It was always slipping out of my needle, being ornery to thread the machine with, and of course finicky to handle. My friend Mindy was struggling with hers in her Coronet so I joined the effort to find the elusive settings and set up that would work in my Regalia. Take a look if it’s something you’re interested in.

My quest to learn how to use my longarm continues below with various experiments.

I made some tshirt yarn out of the torsos of a few older tshirts as well as some scrap knit fabric left over from some tshirts I made a few years ago. The thread painted and FMQ background is on felted wool, the denim in the center of the flower is upcycled and FMQ’ed, the petals are the knit fabric, and the grass is a combination of decorative stitches and embroidery floss. Felted wool doesn’t love an open FMQ pattern.

So I tried a denser leaf pattern that included some thread painting. It turned out better in that it lies flatter but I think it would be a lot better if I had done a full on fill pattern with it. This is a Sulky/Gunold 30 wt cotton variegated thread and boy does it generate lint! I’ve never used such a high lint thread.

I hand cut the petals and leaves and used yarn and light thread painting for the stems. I like to sneak in decorative stitches too, you’ll see them on the leaves and the reeds. I’m happy with how this one turned out.

I’m learning to travel stitch on the veins of the leaves. I guess spring is on my mind with all of the leaves I’m using to do FMQ. I’m still using that same thread (I have a giant cone of it and am obviously in a purple state of mind) for this pattern as well. I know it isn’t a very good end result but it will be a background for a project so there will be some distraction from my rudimentary FMQ skills.

Yes folks, I’m crazy and will sew on just about anything but these are the result of necessity. I made some cards that were too big for the store bought envelopes I had and too small for the next size up. I made a plain, completely unadorned envelope and thought, that looks sad! I’ve never thought that about an envelope before but on this day I decided to FMQ on colored copy paper. Because I’m weird and drawn to unusual sewing projects I rather like this!

Here are a few photos of my ever evolving stairway gallery.

You’re caught up now on my projects. I just ordered the couching foot set as well as the glide foot for the longarm; I thought working with yarns on the longarm would be great fun and I have a lot of yarn for a gal who can’t knit or crochet a single stitch, so this will be a way to use it! I hope anyone who reads this is having their own fun in their sewing space too!