Quilting Along With Leah Day - Week 18

Going Loopy - Week 18

Upper Right - Lots of "l's"

We are going loopy with Leah Day this week. Gone are the straight lines, sharp points and angles of recent weeks. Instead the lines are curved and peppered with loops.

Once again, Leah broke down the assignment to its most basic and built up to the most complex over a series of small steps. Rather than approach this as I did in the past, by selecting a solid colored piece of fabric and marking chalk lines to both guide me and distinguish between the steps, I opted to quilt a practice block I had on hand. I stitched the four different levels of the assignment in the four corners and did the final free form in the remaining five pieces that form a plus sign.

The assignment reminded me of the exercises we would do in fourth grade when I was learning how to write in script. Rather than practice individual letters, we would create rows and rows of loops and  waves.

The machine quilting in the upper left is the most basic of the exercises. Leah described it as a row of "e's" but it was closer to how I write my "l's".

Upper Left - Upside Down "l's"

I thought the work in the upper right, which was an upside down version of the "l's," like the tails of many "y's" looked the best. I shortened the line between loops and focused on the just the loops.

Next, I tried my hands at alternating between "l's" and tails, much like an open, loosely flowing figure 8. It did flow smoothly, but wasn't particularly compelling to use as a quilting motif.

The final assigned pattern was to alternate between "w's" and "m's" with the middle of each letter being a loop. The advantage to this pattern was that you could cover a lot of ground quickly.


Once the formal patterns were complete I tried my hand at doodling loops.

My final thoughts on Going Loopy, is that worked up very easily. It is definitely the kind of stitching that I can float away on. My take away is that it is best suited for cranking out "lovey" quilts.

Lower Right - "g's"

Summer is here and so is my vacation. There will be no Musing from me for a couple of weeks. I look forward to catching up with you and sharing more of progress with Leah's assignments and my personal work when I return.

Lower Left - "M's" and "W's"