FMQ Friday – Quilting a New Background

Yes, I’m still alive! It’s Friday and I’ve not posted since Monday, which is nearly an eternity, but I’ve been almost completely consumed with constant work online.

So I haven’t been quilting, but mostly slugging away at the new website and just today I realized I was in real danger of going through the entire week without quilting. It was putting me in a real irritated mood so this morning I unlocked my hands from the keyboard and forced my feet to carry me downstairs to get something done.

What I’m working on is a new background for the videos on my main machine. For the last several months I’ve used a large piece of muslin with a printed goddess panel pinned to the front. Now I know I can do better than this:

Pretty picture, horrible background

This background area is actually quite large – around the size of a full sized quilt, and it was high time I made something nicer for this area. I’ve fiddled around with enough backgrounds to know that I need to actually quilt this panel so it hangs properly behind me.

I started with hand dyed purple fabric and drew on the goddess face to one side so it would show in the right placement on the video camera. After quilting the rays and goddess motif in white thread, I’m now placing some fusible letters around the logo that I’ll fuse in place before quilting the remainder of the background around them.

I was concentrating on hitting the “photo” button on the camera remote rather than smiling for the shot!

Mostly this is a balance of finding the right colors that will not be too busy, but also not blend in so much they don’t show. At least by now I’ve learned the most important lesson to quilting – TEST!

I’m off to test some more colors and ideas for this background. Since I have to look at it for hours while editing videos, I’d really like it to be something I like rather than cringe at!

So what are you up to today? Have you been busy quilting or stuck on the computer too?

Simple rules for the FMQ Friday link up:

1. Link up with a post that features something about Free Motion Quilting (FMQ).
2. Somewhere in your post, you must link back here, or you can just post the FMQF button in your sidebar.
3. Comment on at least a few of the other FMQF links. Share your love of free motion quilting and make this weekly link up a fun way to connect.

Let’s go quilt,

Leah