McTavishing Monday #2: A Free Motion Link Party

It's week 2 of our free motion link party featuring McTavishing for the month of March. I hope everybody got to learn more about this versatile free motion quilting design and did some practicing on paper and then stitching on their machines!

See week one of the free motion quilt-along, McTavishing Monday


Here's Karen with her daughter. Aren't they beautiful? If I'm not mistaken, since this picture was taken, she's had a son. Well, I know she's had a son, just not sure when this picture was taken, it's an older one. Chalk up another reason to like this lady, that baby is now a boy about the age of my oldest. Maybe we should start a club  for women who are considered young quilters, but older moms of little kids.

Karen's namesake design of McTavishing works great around applique and is wonderful for traditional designs.


And also for more modern quilts. I love how she's changed up her usual McTavishing so that the lines accentuate the contours of the woman below,


And the design can be more edgy and wild as used below in the zombie girl quilt below.


Here's my new McTavishing practice piece, below, in progress. I started with one very curvy line that went all the way across this circle.


free motion quilting design McTavishing

Here's the circle all done.

free motion quilting design McTavishing

And a close up.

free motion quilting design McTavishing

And a video:


 The spools of Glide thread arrived from FilTec for our give-away. Glide is a thread that many aren't familiar with unless you are a longarmer. Their website is at Bobbin Central, named for their prewound bobbins. I admit to a bit of selfishness in wanting to try the thread first as it is new to me and yet, I want to share all 5 1000M spools with some of my wonderful readers. So....I....am going to use a little bit of each one for my McTavishing sampler I am doing for this quilt-along.


I used the color, Cool Grey 3 for this center bit of stitching and it ran smooth as butter! I had to increase my top tension slightly as I was using Isacord in the bobbin and it was winning the typical tension tug-of-war as the Glide is a bit smoother thread. Not that I'm saying anything against either thread. Love them. But when you have two different threads in your machine, you will usually need to adjust your tension unless you have an automatic tensioning machine.


Above is a close up shot of 3 similar threads I had on hand for comparison. It's not perfectly focused, but it's a fair shot. In case you can't tell, I like a little shine to my threads. Isacord has just enough shine for me, and this Glide has just a bit more. The Floriani has even more shine, but I've decided it has too much shine for most of my projects. That's ok, as it is primarily a thread for machine embroidery. The Glide has a very smooth twist too! Very nice thread, you're gonna love it. Have I mentioned it is an affordable thread? Very.

I hope you've had a chance to do some McTavishing this week and are ready to link up your post featuring your work on this great design. Feel free to post a drawing if you are new to this design: drawing the design really helps! Post a sample piece or even a finished work. Treat last week as a base line and see if you've improved!

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This is being linked with Connie's Linky Tuesday.
 

25 comments:

  1. Amy, your McTavishing looks great!!

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  2. So much fun to watch your videos! I can't wait to give it a try for myself....but need to complete a few other projects first! :)

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  3. I didn't manage to get a practice in at atll!!! So sad...I should have made the time. But even if I don't get in on this...I will be following.

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    1. The linky is open until Sunday, so there’s time to do something!

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  4. I drew on & off all week on paper & the more I drew, the worse it looked. :( My very first drawing was the best. So today I tried my hand on fabric & it is really, really bad. It's so shakey & jerky (I told you I am a very, very beginner at FM). I also had to back track over a lot of areas because I "painted myself in a corner". I will definately try more this week in hopes that I get better. Thanks for the picture of yours because it really helps to see how it's suppose to be done.

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    1. I can definitely stitch better than I draw, but don’t ditch the drawing! I went through a period where I had time to just doodle and draw designs but couldn’t stitch much and that’s when my quilting ability grew by leaps and bounds!

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  5. Thanks for the video. I need to work on longer and deeper curves too. I love Glide thread! I started using it last fall.

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    1. Thanks! Getting those deeper, flowing curves is my personal goal for this quilt-along.

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  6. Your McTavishing is beautiful! Love it and wish I could do this myself. :D

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    1. Thank you so much. Keep working at it and you’ll get better!

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  7. McTavishing is beautiful! I'm very new at quilting and it will be many years before I'm at the point of this beautiful quilting! Love it!

    tdkcarpenoctem@hotmail.com

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    1. You never know how long it will take, I've been free motion quilting now for just a little over 4 years! Practice, practice, practice.

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  8. I love this type of quilting. I doodle a lot and I am often filling up pages with McTavishing. I don't have any examples of my quilting because most of my recent stuff has been given as gifts. I need to make some practice pieces to keep on hand.

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    1. Doodling is great! It will increase your skills immensely. Feel free to post pictures of doodles if you want to link up. I try to keep a practice sandwich handy at all times, so I can stitch when the urge strikes.

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  9. Your McTavishing practice looks great! Love her work!

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  10. Your McTavishing looks perfect! Thanks for the info on Glide, I keep wanting to try it! Thanks for sharing.
    Freemotion by the River Linky Party Tuesday

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  11. Do you have a button I can copy onto my blog? I couldn't find one for your McTavishing. Thanks.
    lin3841 at gmail dot com
    linsquilts.blogspot.com

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    1. Hi Lin,

      You’re not the first person to ask this and I confess I didn’t think a button was necessary and I was too busy/lazy to figure out how to do it. I know there are tutorials on how to do it, so I hereby solemnly swear to make one up by the next McTavishing Monday post!

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  12. Came back again today to watch your video before I start today's practice. Your many hours of practicing free motion really shows in your graceful smooth curves.

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  13. i really love how you incorporated a few paisleys into your McTavishing! i must confess i haven't had time to practive on my machine yet, but i have continued to practice drawing!

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    1. Thanks! Karen says she does “C’s” , not paisleys, but I just can’t not do paisleys. It’s stuck in my hands! I am glad to hear you’ve been drawing out the design. It really does help!

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  14. Your McTavishing looks perfect! congrats.

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  15. There is no doubt in my mind that doodling a design first makes the process easier and smoother when you go to the machine to stitch it out.

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