"You know if you get up and sew you'll have something to blog about for Off the Wall Friday"

So my husband said to me last weekend as I was binge-watching 3 seasons of "Glow Up" a British make-up competition show (Netflix - I highly recommend seasons 2 and 3 ..grin).  God really blessed me when he put that man in my path.  He is so right!!  So I got up and tackled my studio.

First I had to clean it from top to bottom.  All the remnants of orange, green, and beige got put away.  Then, I had to search out all my free motion gear and switch my machine into the FM Goddess she is!  Then make up the sample quilt sandwiches, because Lord knows, it's been an age since I free motion quilted!

Once that was all done, I got down to the nitty-gritty!  I pulled out the boxes of my favorite Mettler Poly Sheen thread and opened up my new roll of Golden Threads quilting paper.  Okay, so how I got through 30 years of my quilt life without knowing about this magic, I have no idea.  Maybe it's because I have a habit of spontaneously free motioning instead of actually planning it out.  But I want to give a big THANK YOU to Jenny Lyon for clueing me in on it!!  This paper is specially designed so you can trace a design,  pin it to the top of your quilt, free motion along your traced line and then easily tare it off. Initially, I thought really?  Is it that much better than regular tracing paper or tissue paper?  The answer is yes!  And if you need proof, you can watch this short video by Leah Day.  Plus she shows you exactly how to use it which isn't rocket science.  Two Pro tips....it can easily be found on Amazon Prime and you can use a fine tip light color sharpie to trace and it works great. 

So after I got my FMQ chops tuned up, I managed practicing out some hands.  After the first one, I realized that one line was NOT dark enough.  I did it again going over the hand's line several times.  I also found that for me it worked best if I traced the line every couple of inches.  It gave me a nice smooth line.  This is the sample I cut out and put up on Tessa.  And yes, Tessa now looks ALL HANDS!!  I don't know why I didn't realize that #1 her hands definitely needed a light brown thread and #2 they didn't need to be all thicked line.

This is why you make visual decisions visually!

Funny story of the day, Paul came in to check on my progress (and I believe to make sure I didn't go back to Netflix).  He was all encouraging (I told you he was smart) and praised my work!  After I explained my process of trails, he look vastly relieved and said, "Oh good I thought you were going to leave it like that!"  See God blessed me with that man! He did ask me why are you doing so many trials?  Obviously, he has never tried to take out free motion stitching!!

Anyways, I did manage to get all the trials done and found the right color for the last.  Now I just gotta decide if I'm going to stick with the shiny Poly Sheen or switch back to a nice matte cotton.  Who knew there were so many decisions in one little project!

So the saga continues...grin....

What Have You Been Up to Creatively?