A “self-challenge”………

When I began to really believe that even I could FMQ on the quilts I complete I wanted to jump pretty much right to doing those beautiful feathers I saw at the quilt shows I attended or observed on the blogs I followed. Now, I have already stated that jumping in with both feet is a style I have practiced much over the years in many aspects of my life. This quilt was one I challenged myself to, first, draw only from my stash and, second, quilt with a feather motif. The first goal was fairly easy to achieve, after all, my stash resides not only in my sewing room but, also, in a couple other areas of our farm (outbuildings are great-once a corner is carved out for totes!). The quilting was another story. My desire for feathers definitely outstripped my expertise. That only served to slow me a bit and off to the fabric store I went to find a backing fabric with a print that I could follow. Paisley would do just fine. I outline stitched the appliques on the front (after I had the quilt “sandwiched”) and proceeded to quilt it from the back. Yup, I stitched the outline of the paisley pattern avoiding the outlines of the appliques. The results were quite good and quilting from the back is something I would do again, but did provide the challenge I needed to practice my FMQ for future projects!!