Practice Quilting

I've been piecing quilt tops for just over ten years now.  I haven't made very many quilts, I tend to quilt in spurts.  I'll finish three or four and then go a year without touching my sewing machine.  Some of that had to do with apartment living and space.  Now that I own my house and have a sewing room I've been a little more consistent in my progress from project to project.

Now that there's the new addition of my quilting machine, I'm having to learn a new skill and it's been a bit frustrating good challenge.

My mom helped me pin in some lower quality muslin that she had bought and never used because of it's poor quality and set me loose.  This is my second pass over my practice "quilt."  This time I'm using blue thread. The red thread was a pantograph that I was using, but I'm trying to focus more on free motion and not using a pattern.  I'm happy with the results and I can already see some of my progress.  Especially in my doodles.  The actual quilting takes place in my garage and it's just too hot right now to be out there other than early Saturday or Sunday mornings.  Most of my practice has been in the form of doodles.  Which surprisingly actually works.

One of the things I really have to work on is relaxing and breathing.  I find myself tensing up and things start to get jerky.  I'll get there though.  I'm determined.  My mom is impressed at how well I'm doing.. or at least she tells me she is!