Free Motion Fantasy Blog Hop and Giveaway

Welcome to my stop on the Free Motion Fantasy Blog Hop, showcasing Amanda Murphy's newly released line, Free Motion Fantasy. I was super-excited to be asked to participate in this hop; I love Amanda's style, her fabrics and her free-motion quilting prowess. Fabric that incorporates her beautiful FMQ? I'm in! Be sure to check out the link; betcha want 'em all! I know I did.

And just look at that fabric on the hop button.... Right?!!

I decided to sew up one of my designs I sketched while on an extended stay at my darling grandson Brady's house last summer. This fabric is perfection for this design, which I've made as a bed runner.
I originally designed the runner in two colours, pink and lime, but for the hop, it was a good idea to showcase more of the fabrics, so darn, I had to pick more than just two colours. What a problem to have right? Let's take a look at what I made!

While doing the photo shoot, I thought 'Hopscotch' would be a good name too!

However, 'A Roll of the Dice' works just fine! For fabrics, I chose these beauties. It was so hard to decide!

That was taken under my Ott-lite and really shows the colours well.

The runner is just four blocks, but with all the same background, the coloured fabrics appear to float on the entire background, a lovely effect!

Yes, there will be a pattern!

I've got the pattern written, just need to input graphics. That shot above really shows the incredible, my new favourite, low volume background fabric. Notice the variety of FMQ motifs on the coloured fabrics!

I'd originally thought to keep it simple (two hop posts in one week, foof!) with the quilting, as in straight lines and FMQ the patches in the block centres, let the fabrics shine, right? White Aurifil was used to piece, and it would be used for the quilting. Easy peasy. Fast. After all let's be honest, this bed runner will mostly be used for Bella, my cat! Well, maybe 10% decorative...
So I loaded it on Avril:

Ran a few straight lines 1/2" apart.

And I could not NOT use those ready-made beautiful FMQ swirly/McTavishy flying geese swoop-dee-swoops. This quilt, like my cat, is a diva, and she wanted to strut her stuff!

Uh ya!! Like I said....
btw she's never done that before! Guess I wasn't paying her highness enough attention.

Meanwhile, back to the runner, here in the shade:

I decided to both let the block backgrounds fade into each other, yet differentiate between the four blocks a little, but subtly. So blocks one and three got FMQ following Amanda's design, and blocks two and four got straight lines, vertically and horizontally respectively.

In the FMQ-ed 'one' block I did an angular design while in the straight-line quilted 'two' block, I followed the fabric motifs.

Angular designs in the 'three' block, and wavy lines with bead-filled pods in the 'four' block. My initials are in the centre pod of the last row!

If you want to practise FMQ, get a yard of this fabric, any colour (it comes in white, green, magenta, and orange), and hop to it. It's fun, exhilarating, and meditative. I could see a whole-cloth cushion cover, or four, one of each colour, just in this pattern.

I used three Essential threads from Connecting Threads (affiliate link) for the coloured patches.  These are 100% cotton, and flow through Avril like silk. I used Aurifil cotton 40 weight in the bobbin throughout the entire runner, white Aurifil as mentioned, in the low volume background.

The sulky variegated rayon I used to topstitch the binding. That variegated 'Ocean' spool? Fabulous on the blues and the greens here.

One of the neighbours has this great fence I've been dying to use in a photo shoot:

Early morning sun, perfect!

Laid across, or draped over it:

I chose the magenta flying geese swirls as the binding, machine-stitching to the back and topstitching it to the front.

I stitched one of (oh NO!!! I just realized that AGAIN, I forgot to put my satin 'mmm! quilts' label in the binding on the back, DRAT! Oh well, won't be the first time I've undone the binding to insert it, sigh...) Anyhow, where was I? Oh yeah, I used one of my oh-so-cool fabric labels for the details of the quilt. Always important to apply it to the backing first and quilt on through it, much more difficult to remove that way.

Here is the entire back:

I plan to have this runner reversible. That feature fabric is to die for, no? Another design one could easily use to practice Amanda's motifs. Laura (link below) did on one of her projects! I had hoped to make a matching cushion cover, but it hasn't quite happened yet, but I will add it to this post hopefully later today, flimsy or finished.

So there you have it! I'll let you know once the pattern is available for purchase in my Craftsy shop (affiliate link), which should be very soon! This fabric is in your LQS now. If you'd like to get your hands on a bit of it for free, Benartex is very generously giving away four bundles of 8-10 prints in this line! Sadly, it's only to US addresses, due to high postage costs. You can enter using the Rafflecopter widget below. You have two chances within the widget. The giveaway will be open until early Sunday morning EST. I'll email the winner and announce it on my blog next week. Because of high volume of comments during a giveaway, I won't be responding to comments, but you bet I'll be reading every one of them!😁

Be sure to read the interview with Amanda on Sew in Love With Fabric, and visit these other bloggers in the hop:
Debby Kratovil of Debby Kratovil Quilts
Jayne at Twiggy and Opal
Laura at Slice of Pi Quilts
Lisa at Love to Color My World

Good luck! Update: I will use Rafflecopter to choose a second winner from planet earth who will receive a PDF copy of this pattern once I release it. :-)

Quilt Stats
Pattern: A Roll of the Dice (original design)
Size: 18 X 72"
Fabric: Free Motion Fantasy by Amanda Murphy by Contempo for Benartex
Batting: Warm 'n white 100% cotton
Backing: Free Motion Fantasy
Quilted: on Avril, FMQ and ruler work
Threads:  pieced with 100% cotton Aurifil 40 wt on my Bernina; quilted with Aurifil 50 wt 100% cotton 40 wt, top and bobbin, and Essential threads in coloured patches

Update! Told ya! 90% of its use will be for Bella, aka Madam Cuteness as Wendy calls her. Think Wendy and Rose might be fighting over her...

Linking up
Sew Fresh Quilts
Quilt Fabrication
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
TGIFF at Alycia Quilts
My Quilt Infatuation
Busy Hands Quilts
Clever Chameleon

a Rafflecopter giveaway