Inspiring Creations: DIY Sewing Table and First Time Free Motion Quilting.....

It was the perfect weekend to stay inside and sew. The cooler temperatures really got me excited for fall!

I ordered a new sewing machine a few weeks ago and I finally got it last week. I decided on a Brother HC1850. I decided on this model because:

1. It was in my price range.

2. It can do free motion quilting

3. It has the needle down feature as well as speed control.

When I got my sewing machine I wanted to try free motion quilting on it. I have only tried it once before and it was on my mom's machine and I only did it for like 30 seconds! So I practiced on a bunch of scrap fabrics and sewed for about an hour just trying to get the hang of it. After an hour I came to a couple of conclusions:

1. it really hurts your back and shoulders because you are leaning in a very awkward position

2. it takes a lot of adjusting and time to get your stitches to look good.

So after my hour of sewing I knew I needed to convince my husband to build me a sewing table so it would alleviate some of the awkwardness when FMQ (free motion quilting).

We found a great tutorial. You can find it here.

We turned this walmart desk into:

{Desk found here}

THIS:

Didn't my husband do an awesome job? It fits perfectly in the table. The dowels underneath are a little long and he needs to cut them down so I don't bang my knees on them. Other than that small detail everything is perfect. Having the sewing machine flush against the table really alleviates some of that awkwardness when FMQ.

After he was done building it, I decided to FMQ my first quilt over the weekend.

My friend Kathy was so generous and gave me a tons and tons of fabric. Some of the fabric she gave me was cowboy themed flannel fabric. Perfect for my little cowboy:

Saturday night I was ready to quilt. I basted my quilt. (which took way longer than I though it would) I made sure everything was ready to quilt and I put the middle of the quilt in the machine and started to quilt and ~~it was so easy that I fell in love instantly.~~

It was a nightmare.

I thought I was going to pull my hair out.

I quilted one rectangle and it looked like crap and so I started unpicking it. I was sitting there unpicking all my hard work when my husband came over and gave me a pep talk!

He told me that it was going to be hard and it wasn't going to look perfect. I shouldn't unpick it and I should just continue where I left off and keep trying.

After taking a break and adjusting my tables so that it would work better with the heaviness of the quilt I decided to try again.

It took about an hour, but I finally got the hang of it.

{The arrow is around the area I started}

I decided on a meandering pattern for this quilt because there's really no pattern, just moving around in u-bend shapes.

{The back of the quilt}

I still need to figure out my tension. The back stitches weren't as even as the front.

I also need to work on keeping my stitches even. There are points where my stitches are itty bitty and then there are times when I have larger stitches.

Overall, I feel like for my first quilt I did a pretty good job. I still have a lot to learn!

Tonight I will try machine binding for the first time so I can finish this baby up!