I’ve completed my 3rd week in the Building Blocks Quilt Along, so I thought I would update and link up to Leah Day’s Free Motion Quilting Project! It has been fun seeing everyone else’s progress and I have admired the people who have shared their “not so perfect” work. I figured I would return the favor. It is inspiring to see beautiful work and comforting to know others are encountering similar challenges as you.
I completed my wiggly U’s last week:
Um, I think these are a little wiggly in the wrong places.
This week I encountered other challenges and one kind of obvious discovery that made me go “duh!” I love my new Babylock Jane but I guess I’m still getting used to it. And I’m not really sure how I feel about the free motion foot yet. But I realized today it has a cool little notch which makes following a line easier.
I know – obvious right? I can’t believe I didn’t notice before! It emphasized to me that I was looking at the needle instead of looking where I wanted to go. And it also made me realize that this is kind of a hard habit to break – but I’m making progress.
One mishap this week: I sewed through my Magic Slider. Boo!! I taped it with painter’s tape like I know I should have done in the first place. Sometimes shortcuts are not worth it. Luckily, it still works fine – I’m sorry my magical Magic Slider!
My biggest challenge this week was marking the green batik fabric. I gotta find something that shows up on this! I feel like I could have done a much better job if I could just see what I was trying to quilt! I guess this will be my mission for this week.
So here is the grid pattern I quilted today along with a picture of the backs of both blocks.
I can’t say I am proud of them, but I will say that the month of January has been crazy and stressful for me(not in a tragic or heartbreaking way, just in a crazy and stressful way). Even though I have not practised as much as I should, taking this time each week to participate in this quilt a long has added much-needed fun and relaxation to my life.
And I’ll end on a fun note. Since I got my new machine I have way too many projects going on. (4 that I’m actively working on and a couple more lined up.) The chaos was making me a little crazy.
So here is my whole Building Blocks kit in one bag: blocks cut up, bagged and labeled; batting and backing squares; binding fabric and completed squares. So thanks Stacy – I’m glad I bought this bag!
(I’m trying not to delve to deep into the fact that organizing things in a bag is my idea of fun.)
happypathbookclub 
You should be proud of your progress. The cross-hatching looks great. I did wonder what you tried for marking the green batik – I wonder how a blue marking pen would work. I do know you need to moisten the markings before ironing or they are really hard to remove.
I did try the blue marking pen and also a white Fons & Porter ceramic pencil. Neither of them worked great. Thanks for the encouragement!
I think you are doing great, and can relate to you! I am also pinpointing some of my issues (some that I didn’t know I had)! I think you are lookin’ good! And also like you, this month has been crazy for me and who knows where the heck it went?! Time flies :0)