Free Motion Friday - A Three Motif Challenge from Lori Kennedy

Yesterday Lori Kennedy of the Inbox Jaunt issued a doodling challenge.  She suggested you combine three motifs and some background fills to complete a design.

I picked her Honeycomb Leaf, Fantasy Flower and my own Websterclams.  I decided to start with a frame of Websterclams.

Then I added a fantasy flower in the center.

I decided it needed an outline.

Then I added four Honeycomb Leaves.

They too needed an outline.

And some partial Fantasy Flowers.  I love it at this point.

I did an echo inside the clams.

Then doubled that echo....not my favorite, but you can't erase sharpie and it's just a doodle.

Now for a background.  Wavy lines.  Ick.  They get lost.

Make the waves look more like cross hatching by going in both directions?  Ick too.

Straight lines?  Better.  You can see the motifs more.

Bubbles.  They're okay.  But they'd be better at a smaller scale I think.

Lots of echoing in the last corner?  Eh.  It's okay, but not great.  It goes to show that the background fill can really make or break motifs!

I hope you get to quilt and doodle today!

Suzy

Free Motion Friday - Webster Clams

Today's design is one that is near and dear to my heart.  I developed it for my latest show quilt Kaboom! (see below). I wish I had a close-up of the design to show you, but alas the quilt is in Houston for International Quilt Festival so I can't go snap a picture.  I knew that for this particular quilt I wanted to do a lot of filler designs with circles.  After doodling a ton, this design was born.  It's now one of my go to designs as it's simple and easy to do and gives a nice texture.  

You can find the written directions for making Webster Clams here.  Start by stitching around your block in the ditch.  Then make a circle about 1 inch in diameter.

Bounce from one side to the exact opposite side by making a large C arc.

Continue to make larger and larger arcs about 1/4 - 1/2 inch apart that start and stop in the same original spots.  I usually make 3-5 rings.  Even numbers get you back to where you started.  Odd numbers get you to the opposite side if that's the direction you need to fill.

Travel on the last arc to the spot where you want to start your next circle.  Repeat the C arcs going back and forth.  Sometimes when you get to the edge of the block you have to travel along your stitch in the ditch line to get where you want to go.

Here are three motifs.  I named this design Webster Clams for a couple reasons.  First, it's probably my favorite original design I've come up with.  Second, when I was designing it I was thinking about those lines on actual clam shells.

Keep repeating the circle and arcs until you've filled the desired space.

Voila!  Webster clams are all done.  You can see that some of the arcs are narrower than others depending on the space I had to fill.  I love the texture of this design!

Make sure to come back next week to see posts all about International Quilt Festival Houston!  It's sure to be a blast and I'll be posting all about classes, shopping, quilts, and more!  Regular Free Motion Friday will return November 11th.

I hope you get to quilt today!
Suzy