Practising

The thread I need for a special project has finally arrived.  But, it's been along time since I did any FMQ'g, and since the project involves both FMQ'g and thread painting, I figured I better get some practice in, before starting work on the project. I took one of the pieces I painted last week, and decided to cover it with matchstick quilting, done with free motion.

I've been doing matchstick quilting for a few years, but I was recently told that the lines should be no more that the length of one machine stitch apart, and mine are more like 2-3 stitch lengths apart. So my second goal was to work on making them closer together.

The background is a cotton Damask table napkin, about 20 inches square, that had been LWI dyed.  I then put some  dark lines on it with fabric paint.

I found that it is much more difficult to make the lines exactly parallel when they are longer, and that I was smart to do a practice piece before starting on the main piece. Here is the result. 

First the front view.  As you can see, I tried to alter the direction of the stitching within every defined space.

The effect might be more easily seen on the reverse

Having put this much work into it, I'm hoping it can find some sort of use, perhaps a tote bag.

I plan to link this with Nina-Marie Sayre's Off the Wall Friday, and The Needle and Thread Network.