2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge-August

Our teacher for our August challenge was Wendy Sheppard. She gave us a tutorial on one of her favorite machine quilting designs, Jester Hats!! I decided to make two large jester hats and surround them with little jesters, well, that is what they are supposed to be. I will admit, I did get lost now and then so the jester hats do not always resemble the intended design.

I began sketching the jester hats on August 10th when my husband and I were camping at Belknap Hot Springs. We were there for his 40th high school class reunion. Sketching next to the Mckenzie River was so very peaceful and I think my sketches are much better than the actual quilting. Maybe the sound of the river helped??!!

I taped the back of the little quilt down and then used the adhesive spray 505 to sandwich the layers together. It did work well but I am still not sure if I like it. It is very nice not having all those safety pins to remove and it did go together a lot faster. My needle gummed up just a little but didn't interfere with the machine quilting. I will probably use this method again, but I will also continue to use the safety pins.

The jester hats were drawn on freezer paper, then ironed onto the surface of the quilt sandwich. I then free motion stitched around the edges, it worked great!!!

If you look closely, you can see a bit of a sparkle. I added foiling to the edges of the jester hats to set accent them a bit. I was worried that they wouldn't show up well, so the foiling helped

I learned about the foil from Rhianon Taylor of The Nifty Stitcher, http://rhianontaylor.blogspot.com/ She did some foiling on a fish quilt and the results were so cool that I had to get some and try it on a quilt project!!! Thanks Rhianon!!!

This is the foil and glue I found at Dharma online

You can use the glue or you can use fusible like wonderunder. For this small area I chose to use the glue. You let it dry for 1-8 hours until tacky

Then you place the foil over and rub it. If you use the fusible you apply it to the piece, remove the paper and heat set. The foil stays anywhere there is a sticky surface.

It doesn't adhere to every part glued, but still gives the quilt a very neat appearance.

I decided to add a narrow edge to the quilt. It kind of resembles the foiled edges of the jester hats.

I first basted the edges on and then applied the binding

Binding on and all sewn down!!

Wow, I cannot believe I quilted this and posted it just hours before the deadline!!! Thank-goodness it is completed!!!!

Thank-you Wendy for you wonderful tutorial, it is so awesome to learn another free motion design!!! :^)
Take Care everyone, Happy Quilting and keep those needles sharp!! Martha