 |
| My walking foot in action! |
 |
| Yes, that is a Bernina Aurora 440 Quilter's Edition. |
 |
| Echo quilting. |
 |
| Wavy lines. |
 |
| I do a lot of wavy lines using my beloved walking foot. |
 |
| My helper, Peaty. |
 |
| He loves to crawl under chairs. |
As I mentioned a while ago, I am working on a project that I cannot show publicly yet. My friend,
Anne, and I are working on a collaboration. We each made a small art quilt top. We then traded them. Next we had to "expand from within" the top and then quilt it. We will have our reveal at the
Utah Quilt Guild Quilt Fest Show next month. We will be entering the quilts and then get to see what the other has done with our original piece. I am working on the quilting. That is always a challenge for me as my free motion quilting skills are not where I would like them to be. So I have to confess. I do a lot of my quilting with my walking foot. It is more versatile then you would think Last year I co-taught a class devoted to different design ideas using your walking foot. Both for utility and arty quilting.
Yes, that is a Bernina 440 with the famous BSR. I am a Bernina gal. I also have a 1080 that I absolutely love. But when the BSR came out (about 6 years ago?) I decided that I had to have it! This for sure will cure my free motion issues! Bring it on! Well, yeah, the stitch is very nice and it certainly helps me with control, I could never get my foot and hands to coordinate very well, but guess what? IT DOES NOT IMPROVE YOUR DRAWING SKILLS!
I have taken more than several free motion quilting classes from a variety of teachers; local and more well known. My biggest problem is the one thing they all say: practice, practice, practice. So here I am with a deadline and no time to practice, practice, practice, before tackling the project. Back to my trusty walking foot I run. I will do as much as I can with my good buddy and then fill in the rest with some free motion.
If you are going to be anywhere near St. George, UT the end of September, check out the quilt show! It should be a fun event. Anne and
Lisa will be teaching a Surface Design class and also a Dyeing class (the venue has a place where they can do "wet" classes).
I joined a blog party! It is called Off the Wall and is hosted by
Nina Marie. So check it out every Friday.
I'm looking forward to the reveal!!!
ReplyDeleteI am just finishing up a very big quit in which I used my walking foot and free-motion. I did close together wavy lines with the walking foot and lots of doodling with the free-motion foot. I think free motion is a lot more fun, but there are some areas where it doesn't work.
ReplyDeleteWalking foot - I never machine quilt anything without it. What's to confess? I also have a similar dog, different colours. Blogged just today on a sample for comparing different battings. But free machine quilting and embroidery require you to drop your feed dogs, put on your darning foot, and operate totally differently. If you need help with this, email me privately.
ReplyDeleteokay confession time - I have a Janome 7700 and it has an automatic walking foot - all ya gotta do is pop it down - do I ?? nooo - LOL!! But since you and Alison can't live without yours and after seeing your pictures - I'm going to have to start using it more often!! But I do a FMQ and practice does help a ton - once I get going I don't even think about the stitching any more!
ReplyDeleteI love walking foot too, also if I haven't a Bernina.
ReplyDeleteWhen I do art quilts I usually do freemotion but when I have to quilt straight lines the walking foot is a blessing!
Your dog photos made me smyle, my dog is a chair crawler too and being a big dog sometimes she move my chair, with me sitting on, crawling under it.
I love my walking foot also, but don't have a Bernina so I have no idea what a "BSR" is. Anyway, nice to see your blog. :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, I only use my walking foot for straight line quilting or large circles - so I don't use it very often, though every time I do, I think "why don't I use this more often?" lol
DeleteI must admit that I also love to quilt with my walking foot. I do use FMQ from time to time, but I find most things can be accomplished with the walking foot.
ReplyDeleteI cannot wait until your show us the finished piece. I love the use of colour in the piece. I cannot live without my walking foot!
ReplyDelete