Block in free motion – Where the idea came from

After giving a free-motion demonstration HERE  I've been asked by a couple of ladies to organize a workshop to teach them this technique.  Now, without taking away anything from national teacher, Ronel Linde (she was the first person to teach me to do this), Leah Day, Patsy Thomspon, Diane Gaudinsky who all answered every single e-mail sent by me, I still firmly believe that no-one can actually teach you to do free motion quilting.  I've always stated that the best favor Ronel Linde could do to me was to make me sit on my butt for 2 days solid and stitch and stitch and stitch.  When Ronel mentioned that it would roughly take 300 hours before mastering this technique, I then thought I would never get there.

Now just before this event I came across the most beautiful (to me that is) free motion quilt by Emma How  and I just knew that for this workshop I wanted all of us to do this quilt.  So fearing all the copyright laws I did the right thing and contacted Emma asking permission to use her idea.  Now with all the hoo-ha about copyright I should add that I've NEVER had a bad response from anyone I’ve ever contacted asking if I may use their video on YouTube, a quilt design, a picture or whatever which brings me to the conclusion that most quilters are actually very kind people.  Needless to say Emma too gave permission to use her basic idea.  Now this was the quilt I first saw, that lead to this workshop.

Should you wish to read more about this and get a better picture of the quilt by Emma, simply click HERE.

So after mentioning to these ladies that what I am about to ‘teach’ them might just as well be accomplished by themselves at home but I also acknowledge the fact that it is simply so much nicer doing something like this in a group, where you can see that others struggle with the same things you do, get hints and tips from the quilting greats via the internet and measure your progress to those of the rest of your group.

So a new workshop started with no less than 12 of us doing this.  I however didn’t want to copy Emma to the T, so I made my own pattern using EQ7 and once done we were ready to start this journey.