October FMQ Challenge with Teri Lucas

October FMQ Challenge Piece, 15" x 15" Silk Taffeta with Double Batting

I just finished my free-motion quilting sample for the October tutorial on SewCalGal's blog.  Although this is the 10th month in the 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge, I still have several months that I need to make up in order to get all 12 finished before the end of the year.  I have to say, I really am seeing huge improvement each month.

This month's tutorial was courtesy of the very talented quilter Teri Lucas.  Some of the interesting twists for the October challenge were:

• Teri suggested a silk or silk/cotton blend fabric for the sample instead of a quilting weight cotton.  I found a yummy scrap of terra cotta silk taffeta that was leftover from a client's drapery project years ago, so that's what I used for the challenge. 
• I almost missed this, but Teri directed us to put TWO layers of batting in this quilt sandwich, a bamboo or needle-punched low-loft polyester batting closest to our backing fabric, and a layer of wool or silk batting on top of that, just beneath the silk fabric.  I found some thin Mountain Mist poly batting and layered Hobbs Tuscany Silk batting on top of that.  I attempted to baste this much-thicker-than-usual sandwich with safety pins, but that was a disaster -- I ended up using 505 Temporary Spray Adhesive between each layer to prevent shifting and distortion.
• Teri also wanted us to play with different threads, which I don't normally do.  Since the silk fabric had a sheen, I decided to experiment with a box of forgotten Sulky rayon 40 weight embroidery thread.  I used the same thread in the needle and in the bobbin, and reduced my upper thread tension down to 1.5 in order to get a nice, balanced stitch on both sides of my quilt sandwich.

Pebbles, Nautilus Shells, and Feather-Like Leafed Thingys

I practiced several motifs that were new to me, like the nautilus shells, pebbling, and the feathery leafy thingys.  Oh, and notice how nice and even my tiny little stitches are?  I have finally gotten comfortable with the "laser" powered Bernina Stitch Regulator (BSR) on my Artista 200E/730E sewing machine.  I set my stitch length to 1.8 and worked slowly, and had no problems whatsoever.  The laser actually counts fabric threads as I move the fabric beneath the needle so the computerized machine can speed up or slow down the needle speed as necessary to maintain that even stitch length.  Pretty cool!

Meandering, Jester Hats, Feather-Like Objects and Today's Date

I also worked on improving a couple of motifs that I'd attempted in the past but was never really satisfied with.  Today's meandering fill stitch (upper right area in the photo above) is the best I've ever done.

One last look:

Completed October Challenge, approximately 15" x 15"

Thank you, Teri, for sharing this wonderful tutorial with us!  It was a lot of fun.

I Survived My First Substitute Teaching Assignment!

"Substitute Teacher" by Omnitarian, for Shirt.Woot

I spent all day Friday and today as a substitute 6th grade Language Arts and Social Studies teacher, and I lived to tell about it! 

I was filling in for one of Lars's teachers, who left me very detailed plans for both days, tidy little seating charts, and sticky notes of encouragement.  I got to read a short story to the Language Arts classes on Friday, which was fun for me and held their attention.  The worksheets and almanac activities that came after that, well, not so much.  For some bizarre reason, this year's sixth grade is about 75/25 boys to girls, and the boys all have LOTS TO TALK ABOUT.  CONSTANTLY!  I finally broke out my iPad and pretended to videotape the class, panning the room as I narrated like this: "Hello, Mrs. Regular Teacher, this is your 5th period Language Arts class!  This is how they behave when you aren't here."  It's amazing how quickly they settled down when they thought their every move was being captured on video.  After all, I might not be able to instantly put a name to every child whose mouth was running or who might have been smacking the kid next to him with a ruler, but their teacher knows exactly who they are...

Other than talking out of turn and minor silliness, they were a pretty well-behaved bunch.