DVD Questions Answered

Hi Everyone and welcome to another Anything Goes Thursday!

Today I want to answer all the questions I’ve been getting about the new Beginner Free Motion Quilting Fillers DVD.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about what this DVD will contain. For this new project, I’m taking 30 Beginner and Beginner / Intermediate designs from the blog and stitching new 6.5 inch black squares.

The designs I’m choosing will not be designs that were featured in Free Motion Fillers Volume 1 or Volume 2.

So far I’ve stitched: Elodea, Pointy Paisley, Basic Chevron, Broken Glass, Flame Key, Stomach Lining, Oil Slick, Pumpkin Patch, Lollipop Chain, and Frog Eggs.

Why these designs? These are all beginner designs, but they also have a very nice texture and can easily be expanded on most quilts.

If there is a beginner design that MUST be in this DVD, please post your opinion in the comments below! I still need to pick 5 more designs, and I’d love some feedback on which to pick.

These are going to be totally new designs (never in a DVD), stitched on a larger scale and with a longer video than what has been shared on this project.

I’ve also been playing with camera angles and trying to stitch these fillers without turning the fabric squares at all, much like quilting a real quilt.

The squares I’m quilting for video will be put together in a quilt which will be used on the cover of the new DVD and I may also enter it into quilt competitions if it finishes nicely.

I’m not sure if all 30 videos will fit on one single disc, so this will probably end up being a 2 disc set. If I have extra space, I’m also going to piece up a real quilt and show how to use 3 to 5 fillers on blocks, around a quilting motif, in the sashing, and filling a border.

I’m getting pretty excited about this project! Josh is going to start editing the 10 designs I stitched earlier this week while I run upstairs and start quilting the next 10.

Hopefully by Saturday we will have everything stitched and the editing process underway by Monday morning.

In other news, I seem to have skirts on the brain lately. There are so many cute skirt patterns available now, but recently I picked up this Hip Skirts pattern by Favorite Things.

While I absolutely love to sew and make quilts, making clothing for myself is always tricky. Getting the measurements right, knowing what size to cut out, and getting the garment to fit correctly is a really annoying process. Why can’t clothing be as easy as quilting a flat quilt?!

But so far this pattern seems very simple. My circle skirt is cut out of only 3 pieces and there is no zipper or drawstring.

Instead the skirt waist band is cut on the bias, which allows it just enough give to get over my head or hips, but not so much that it ends up around my ankles by the end of the day.

I don’t have a photo of my first attempt yet because, like a very good seamstress, I have cut out a test sample from muslin and it looks, well, like a skirt cut out of muslin. Pretty fugly!

If the muslin skirt fits well I’m planning to dye it or paint it to see if I can turn that ugly duckling into a beautiful masterpiece.

In other news, I wanted to send out a huge THANK YOU! to Sonja, a wonderful blog reader who sent me a present!!!

She mailed me this book: The Designers Guide to Japanese Patterns for inspiration. I’ve kept this book in my reading window for the last month, thoroughly enjoying paging through the designs while James eats lunch or snack.

I’m always a sucker for Yin Yangs! Here’s one of my favorites on page 97:

Whoa! These designs looks familiar!

These are very similar to Echo Shell and Echo Rainbow, designs I based off of French quilting designs, but this is also similar to a traditional Baptist Fan design.

It just goes to show that good designs are super addictive, no matter where you live in the world!

Let’s Go Quilt,

Leah Day