In the last of her series, Renée Fleuranges-Valdes shares something very dear to her heart… free-motion quilting
Notes from the Classroom with Renée Fleuranges-Valdes
Wow... my tenure at Today’s Quilter is coming to an end. This is my last Notes from the Classroom article, at least for now. So I decided to focus on my favourite topic of free-motion quilting (FMQ)! I have two loves when it comes to my art quilts and by far FMQ is No.1!
Why is it my favourite? Well, mainly because it is where I truly get to relax and play. I know to some that sounds sort of impossible, but I believe I put in the work necessary to get to this place. I practised, practised, practised and soon it became play, play, play. Remember that magic 500 hours I talked about in an earlier article? Well, I did that and more. So this month, besides practising I want to share some tips that turned practise into play and stress into relaxation.
Be intentional
Early on I made a 12in quilt sandwich and doodled. But without direction that became boring. So instead I created 24in square mini quilts. I was making mostly traditional quilts with a modern twist at the time, so my mini quilts had a bunch of open space to play with my machine quilting. I was quilting on my domestic, which meant the designs needed to be small enough so I could repeat them over and over without moving my hands. I treated the space between my hands as a separate ‘quilt’. These quilts were my playground, so if I messed up no one cared but me. And guess what, they turned out fabulously! You see, because they were quilts and not practice squares, my mind treated them as something worth doing right, and in the end that is what they became. I used this same technique when I moved to long-arm quilting. First I made a bunch of muslin quilts and some charity quilts after that. But the time came for me to put a real quilt top on the frame. I choose one that had been sitting for a couple of years, so it was ‘time’. I defined areas where I would focus and off I went, and oh my brain once again said it was ready for the challenge. I focused and the results proved that my focus and intention paid off.
Choose wisely
What you quilt in a space is just as i
