10 Minute Block Top, in progress
Saturday was the monthly meeting of The Linus Connection. I had the honor of doing a little demonstration of a fun technique developed by Suzanne McNeill.
It’s fun and super easy to do and uses simple squares to create a striking design. My version, in green and purple, was created using 6″ squares from a green swap I did with online friends and 5″ squares of purple from my stash. It’s a great technique to use with charm packs or layer cakes, too! This particular quilt is not a Linus donation but was used for my demonstration.
Suzanne McNeill’s demo
I’ve also been working on my free-motion quilting. I took a class a couple of years ago, and then never touched it again. I tend to fall back on my favorite echo quilting, but am working to get better at free-motion so I can quilt some of my smaller pieces. On the recommendation of a friend, I was quilting with my feed dogs up instead of down (down is usually recommended for free-motion) and I found I had much more control. This month, I worked on quilting some simple tops that were created from larger panels and then bordered.
Quilting close up. I still need lots of practice!
A quilted panel. Panel given to me by Mary C.
I had the great honor of hosting two of my online crafty friends, Amber and Courtney just last week. Amber regularly donates to The Linus Connection and she brought three fantastic afghans with her to share with Linus. These all went out at the Saturday meeting. The colorful offering above was made using the Sunny Spread pattern.
Visit Amber’s website, Amber’s Originals.
Afghan by Amber
Afghan by Amber
Sewhooked 
I’ve never been able to quilt with my feed dogs down. I have done a tiny bit of free motion quilting (it’s not my fave) and every time I’ve tried to be official with my feed dogs down the quilt just sits there.
I am so in love with that royal panel! What a wonderful quilt.
I just have no control when the feed dogs are down. I could do teeny tiny designs, but for bigger designs, I just made a mess and having the feed dogs up just makes it soooo much easier!
I have another of the royal panels which I cut into blocks. Eventually, I’ll border them and piece them back together…eventually!
You can free-motion quilt with the feed dogs up?! I didn’t know this was possible. I’m trying to teach myself free-motion quilting, too, and I find it pretty difficult to control, so maybe I should try this.
Robin
Yes, you can! I had no idea until a friend mentioned it and I gave it a try. It’s much easier for me to do with the feed dogs up than down.