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Thursday 4 August 2016

An Award and an Oooooops moment in FMQ

I was stunned and so happy the other day when I was nominated for a One Lovely Blog Award from Abigail at Cut & Alter, you could have knocked me down with a feather. Thank you so much Abigail.  If you haven't met her before hop on over and say hello, she is one very accomplished lady.




 Now it is my turn to nominate.

So First the rules which I cut and pasted from her blog:

The Rules:
*Thank the person who nominated you, and give a link to his/her blog.
*List the rules.
*Display the image of the award on your post.
*List seven facts about yourself.
*Nominate (up to) 15 bloggers for this award, and notify them to let them know you have nominated them.

Here goes:
  1. I don't have a favourite colour
  2. I love cake, although I only eat it about once a month
  3. I was a qualified nurse until leaving to help run our business
  4. I am vegetarian
  5. I loose my voice if I attempt to sing, literally, after less than one verse.
  6. My all time favourite film is Shirley Valentine
  7. I love lemongrass tea.
That was hard, have you ever tried to list facts about yourself?  Interesting experience.

But this is the hardest bit, how to narrow down a list of favourite bloggers, although Abigail has already listed some of them which sprung to mind, it includes her too.   Ok here goes, first to jump into my head and in no particular order, even though I know I will inadvertently miss some.  Most of these lovely ladies have smaller blogs and some are new to blogging like me, but my reason for choosing them is all are lovely people who I like very much. There are others who have bigger blogs with much bigger followings who I love too, but today is more a tribute to us little people.

Sophie from Luna Lovequilts
Bernie from Needle and Foot
Karen from KaHolly
Tish from Tish's Adventures in Wonderland
Janice from Color, Creating and Quilting
Jen from Quilter in the Closet
Paula from Paula B Quilts
Emily from The Darling Dogwood

While trying to help out a fellow blogger having trouble with her machine (same as mine) she listed her setting for FMQ, interestingly she stated reducing the foot pressure, what??????   Could that be the reason I have trouble with FMQ?   Oh yes it was, but apart from I'm still rubbish anyway.  But, it is so much easier to be rubbish now hehe!  I think I need to go back to basics and start again, maybe there is some other stuff I'm missing out, and yes I do drop my feed dogs!!!  I'm sure I used to so it, so why did I stop?  Haven't a clue.  After watching all those classes too............  Have you ever had a similar moment?   Go on, be honest, surely I can't be the only one, can I?

Here is my playtime, see if you think I'm improving.


Not loopy loops this time, more a go at the jigsaw one,


If you look closely you will see on the coasters I did the middle two different.  The top one is supposed to be a flower at each side and the lower middle is pebbles.


Just a squiggle around the snowman and tree on these, I left the sides just quilted in the ditch.


This is the one I had more trouble with, I found the design harder and messed it up, THEN I realised it was just on the wadding, no backing on.  That's when I decided I'd had enough practice for one day.

I'm going on holiday to Corfu so I won't be around for a couple of weeks, so, I just thought I'd leave you with a prayer:

May today there be peace within

"May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise, and love. It is there for each and every one of us."

Theresa of Avila


Smiles and hugs
Kate

Linking to Lorna and Kelly

22 comments:

  1. Congrats! You certainly deserve it.

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  2. wow, lots of cute stuff going on here, love the nesting dolls and the elephants particularly!

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  3. Congrats on the award and the FMQ! It's funny the difference even small settings adjustments can make.

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  4. Kate, congrats on the award, well deserved! Your quilting is nice and smooth and evenly spaced, great job! I hope you have a wonderful vacation!

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  5. Well Kate: You have a lovely blog and it's great that you received the lovely blog award! The free motion quilting is coming along. Have a great time in Corfu.

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  6. Oh, Kate - what a sweet post. Thank you for nominating me. You made me feel so special! The prayer at the end of the post is wonderful. Truly wonderful.

    OK - the fmq -it isn't rubbish. Not even close. You are doing great and as you practice I am sure you will become more confident. I don't know what kind of machine you are using (I can't remember, if you did tell me??_ But when I was lamenting my stitches, someone suggested I try leaving the feed dogs up (crazy, right) and set the stitch length to zero. This has helped me a great deal. Might want to try it.
    I love your little dolls on the blocks. Really sweet.
    Have a great vacation! Look forward to hearing about it when you return. Relax and enjoy your time away. :-)

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  7. I'm so excited I erased my first post. Congratulations on such a fine award. You have put yourself out to help and encourage others, making this a better blogging community. I was amazed and honored that you nominated me. I finally feel that I do have a place in this special community of fine and generous folks. What do I do now?

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  8. Congratulations on your award! Your FMQ looks fine from here :-). The part with FMQ I struggle the most with is deciding where to go. That and not remembering to move the quilt. Clearly you've gotten past those two issues so well done you! I hope you enjoy your holiday! Corfu sounds very exotic!

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  9. Thank you so much Kate for nominating me ! My blog post is published.

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  10. Lovely post, Kate. Congratulations! Yes, your FMQ is looking better all the time! When everyone says it takes practice, practice, practice, they aren't kidding! This is my third summer with my Janome, and I'm still fighting for control! But, sew much fun! Thanks for the award! I'll have to think hard! Enjoy your vacation. I don't know where Corfu is, but it sounds interesting! XO

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  11. Wonderful, congratulations to the award Kate. I find your FMQ is coming along just fine.

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  12. And yes, I had similar moments, as in: it could be beneficial to iron your fabrics before using them... or... what, it is possible to test the alignment by using a basting stitch prior to sewing the pieces with a tiny stitch length?...

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  13. Hi Kate! I'm with everybody else in that your quilting looks GREAT! I think your playtime was very productive! And you'll just keep on improving. I have no doubt at all about that. Congratulations on being nominated for the Lovely Blog Award and thank you so much for nominating me! I STILL haven't got my notification that you wrote a new post and never would have found out about it if Paula hadn't told me. Thanks, Paula! I guess I'll get it tonight. I'm so glad I met you. You not only have a lovely blog, you're a lovely person. :)

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  14. fmq is hard and takes practice. Keep practicing! Have a lovely holiday.

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  15. Congratulations on the award.I only have tried FQM in small projects and don´t look beautiful for me it is a challenge.I handquilting and enjoy do it.It`s a relax time.
    Wishing you a fun weekend.

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  16. Keep practicing. You're doing fine. And that's a great prayer. Enjoy your holiday.

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  17. Congratulations on your nomination Kate!!! And lemongrass tea sounds glorious, I'll have to give that a try!

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  18. Congratulations on your nomination Kate!!! And lemongrass tea sounds glorious, I'll have to give that a try!

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  19. Kate, congrats on your nomination! I love reading your blog and you definitely deserved it. And a huge thank you for nominating me. It was totally unexpected and I feel honored to be included with your list of bloggers. Your FMQing looks great! You must keep going, each stitch gets better and better. I hope that you have a great time on your vacation. We can't wait to hear about it when you get back.

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  20. It's nice to learn a bit more about you. Hope you are having a tremendous holiday.

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  21. Congratulations Kate, it couldn't have happened to a nicer person. Hope you are having fun on your vacation. I've been in a bit of a depression lately and so haven't been out on the Internet. Just found out I was nominated too! Wish I'd discovered that earlier, but my discovery now is certainly timely.

    Don't know what you're talking about with your quilting. It looks great to me. I can never get such even stitches no matter how hard I try. Doesn't stop me from doing my own quilting though.

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Thank you so much for taking the time to read and leave a comment, it helps me grow as a quilter and as a blogger. It also makes me very happy :)
I try to respond to all comments by email, but if I don't reply within a few days it may be because you are a no reply blogger

With smiles from,
Kate