Two Small Finishes

These pretty little squares were on my first quarter Finish Along list, and now they are...finished!

They were made by a quilting friend as part of a round robin exchange we were doing a couple years ago.  She made them as cornerstones, set around a medallion that I started.  My intention was to have a mini quilt, but I think that must not have been clearly communicated, as her addition would have made the quilt far too big to be a mini.

The quilt sat around for a while, and I've since lost contact with that friend.  That makes me sad, but I do think of her often as I look around my sewing room and see small gifts and things she made for me.  And now, I have finished her two blocks and they are part of my room, as well.

I used these blocks to experiment with the free motion foot that I recently bought for my machine.  I knew that the quilting on these would be rocky.  This is a brand new skill for me, and in fact this was the FIRST time I had even put the feed dogs down on this machine!  And, I know that it is usually recommended to start learning to FMQ with scrap fabric.  But, I figured I had little to lose.  I wanted to get these off the  "In Progress" pile, and I wanted to play around with the foot, and figure out how it worked.

I pulled Beginner's Guide to Free Motion Quilting by Natalia Bonner from my shelf before I started and read through the first part.  It was helpful in getting set up, and I will return to the book as I continue to learn.  I jumped in, though, a bit hastily I think.  I started with some swirls and probably should have stayed with loops.

I cringe a bit, looking at the quilting. I almost scrapped these all together and tossed them in the garbage.  But, instead, I finished them both with "self binding".  One of them is hanging on my sewing room wall, and the other is there to greet my coffee cup and treats on the mornings that I get to sew.

 I hope that years from now, when FMQ has become natural to me, I will look at them and smile at how far I've come!  For now, I'm happy to have these done and being used!