Author: Teresa

Quilts, good books and dogs. Plus a cup of tea. Life is good.

Rediscovering FMQ

January 7, 2024

FMQ class is in session! It’s been more than a hot minute since I last did any FMQ.

We had orientation on Wednesday morning to go over what to expect the next 12 weeks. During orientation, HollyAnne recommended a certain brand of quilting gloves along with specific needles and thread.

Intrigued by the gloves, Sadie & I took a field trip to String & Story so I could try on the gloves. Glad I did. I have short stubby fingers with a wide palm. I typically buy medium quilting gloves to fit my hand and the fingers are always too long. The Swan Amity gloves come in 4 sizes. Their size chart recommended I purchase the XSmall based on my finger length. The Small offered a more comfortable fit around my palm, with the fingertips still being a reasonable length. I purchased a size Small.

While in the shop, I met HollyAnne and asked about the recommended FMQ feet for the class. She encouraged me to experiment with all of my FMQ feet to see which one works best for me. The hopping foot gets the job done. However, I’ll stick with the Janome convertible free motion foot with the open toe or ruler foot. The Janome foot’s much smoother because there is no spring action involved as with the hopping foot (can you say bounce?). I set my speed control lever at the 2/3 mark and lowered my feed dogs. With the hopping foot, I achieved best results stitching at 1/2 speed with the feed dogs up. I can honestly say having quilting gloves that fit well makes a noticeable difference.

We were told that practice is what gives confidence and we’ll be doing a LOT of practice in this class.- 30 different motifs to be exact. I’ll definitely be busy!

Storybook Arts & Crafts with a side of Sadie {Update}

January 7, 2024

Monday enrichment begins anew on January 22nd. I’ll have 3 classes this semester lasting about an hour each. My students are K-5. I told my boss I was flexible and could arrange activities to suit any of the K-5 groupings I might be assigned. This semester, I challenged myself to not spend any money on picture books and to use existing supplies for craft projects as much as possible.

Class rosters came out yesterday. This semester, I have 31 students spread over 3 classes – many more than anticipated. This called for revamping the activities I’d planned to do with the kids. I had to pick-up more scissors, crayons and construction paper to start the semester. When I started to overthink activities and go down the maker rabbit hole, hubs yanked me back to reality. He wisely reminded me to keep things simple. Use what I have, but go buy what I need. [Made use of the giftcard my aunt gave me for Christmas!] Make activities enjoyable, keep weekly preps easy on me. The kids will have fun regardless of what we do. Good advice, but so hard when you find all sorts of cool projects you want to make…

Here’s the plan through Winter Break:

1/22 & 1/29: How to Catch a Snowman by Adam Wallace & Andy Elkerton – snowman activity from A Simple Mom plus whatever snowman/snowflake book I can get from the public library – cut paper snowflakes using templates from Superstar Worksheets and by hand following art teacher video on YouTube. Update: 4th & 5th snowman activity: download assorted snowglobe templates and have students design trap to keep snowman from escaping snowglobe. 

2/5: Grumpy New Year by Katrina Moore  - Dragon paper roll activity for the littles and fabric fortune cookies for the big kids (hand sewing).

2/12: Whatever Valentine book arrives first from public library – Paper plate Valentine suncatchers.

2/19: Sadie visits – dog themed stories from Sadie’s library - simple craft activities - littles: paper plate puppy activity. older students : origami dog bookmarks.

And this gets us through Winter Break the last week of February!

Note: I post these ideas to share with librarians, teachers, former colleagues, homeschool moms or anyone really who is looking for great read-alouds and low cost craft activities to share with their kids. I may be retired, but I still get texts from former colleagues needing ideas for books and teaching research skills.

Photo by Yan Krukau on Pexels.com

Can you believe it’s 2024?

January 3, 2024

Personally, I’m excited for what this year brings – summertime means I’ll be officially retired. The next couple of months will be spent jumping through hoops to apply for retirement benefits and keep our health insurance moving along the continuum until retirement officially begins. I’m very thankful for the teacher retirement system advisor who told me about the process to keep our insurance in place in case I needed to leave employment before my official retirement date. For us, this proved to be the catalyst for retiring two years sooner than planned. It has been SO worth it!

Normally, I select a word of the year and make several resolutions for the coming year. I’m not doing that this year. Health, travel and quilting are my priorities. I’ll continue the health and wellness journey I began last year. Travel plans are now being made for summer and fall. FMQ Academy with HollyAnne Knight starts tomorrow.

The first 18 months of retirement have been focused on improving my piecing and walking foot quilting skills. Now, I’m ready to move beyond a loopy meander and do more “custom” quilting on my throw/lap size and smaller projects. The occasional large quilt will still be quilted by checkbook as I have no desire to own a longarm machine. If I get my FMQ groove down, but still have issues with consistent stitches, I’ll consider buying a Bernina 770 or Janome 9480 (with a stitch regulator) as a retirement gift to myself.

Quilty goals: focused destashing, improving FMQ skills and donating more projects to charity.

  • 2024 has been designated as “low buy” year for fabric, patterns, books, and notions. I am intentionally limiting myself to stash based projects that are free or use an existing pattern/book in my library.
  • I have so many flimsies in the pile that need to be finished. I do not have the budget to send everything out to the longarm quilter. Hello FMQ. I can do a loopy meander just fine, but want to up my FMQ game. I’ll spend the next 3 months in FMQ Academy with HollyAnne Knight of String & Story. This is also a test to see if guided, focused practice over time means I can do without a stitch regulator.
  • Several of my flimsies used for FMQ practice will go to my guild’s community service. Any orphan blocks or blocks made while learning a new technique can easily be turned into placemats for Meals on Wheels if I have no plans to keep it for a personal project.

P.S. Sadie and I made 26 facility visits as a therapy dog team in 2023. We’ll definitely be upping that number in 2024!