Crafty update

Remember when you first learned to drive a stick shift? That's what this free motion quilting has been like for me. Initially it's very frustrating because you KNOW how to drive an automatic. Why should one extra pedal on the floor board make such a difference? And suddenly you can't even get out of your parking spot much less GO anywhere. Sheesh. Going from quilting straight lines to doing these little swirly swirls has been quite the adventure. (And there's not even an extra pedal involved!) But after much, much, practice - I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of it. This is someone's Christmas present.

Notice what the cute little swirlys look like on the back:
And the front:

Hooray! It's a little awkward to see snippets in a picture like this but I promise it looks cool when you stand back and see the whole thing.

In my online quilting bee, October's month was "stars". I made two - here is the first one:

And here is the second one: It's actually the first one I made. I tried to get creative and use several fabrics to piece together the start points. Unfortunately my plan backfired because all that piecing caused my seams to get off a bit and my final block is 1/4 inch too small. Oh well. The bee only requires that one block be made, so I'm safe with the other star (although I liked this one so much better!)

To see everyone else's crafty stars you can look here.