On to better things

Last month I received two "fan emails" from readers who had seen my article in QH and then came to read my blog. The second email was from Leah Day, and at the time, that meant nothing to me other than a pretty name. She mentioned that she had an email newsletter and would be linking to me in the next one, and, of course mentioned her own blog, which I dutifully checked out.

Ho. Ly. Shit.

Stop everything that you are doing and please go to Leah's insanely fantastic blog, 365 Days of Free Motion Quilting Filler Designs.

Now, I have just quilted my first quilt, not in free motion, just in the ditch with a walking foot, but I have been practicing my free motion anti-skills on some blocks that didn;t make it into the final quilt:





(If your eyes are bleeding or you feel like vomiting, go look at this for a while and you'll feel better.)

Obviously, I have a lot of work to do, just to get stippling down. Now, Leah's blog is mainly about filler designs, and I believe that these are intended for more arty quilts rather than ones the kids will be throwing up on. Nevertheless, her work is truly inspiring, not just because she is indeed creating a new design every day for a year, but each design HAS AN ACCOMPANYING VIDEO SHOWING HOW SHE DOES IT.

I know.

So then, I see that she has links in every post to her online shop where you can buy some of the supplies she uses, such as quilting gloves and slick Teflon surfaces for your sewing machine, and what not, and there I find, MORE VIDEOS. And these are geared towards morons like me. Check out this one on stippling. In it, she says those magic words that make a quilter like me get all tingly: Give yourself permission to mess up.

I think I'm in love. (Sorry, David.)

Seriously. Please go check it out. If, like me, you have never machine quilted but you have always wanted to, you'll find help and inspiration here.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go sit by the mailbox and wait for my gloves to arrive.