Flora & Fauna

"Fauna is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is Flora." - so Wikipedia tells me.
This is a quilt I have been thinking about making for quite some time - not so much the flora & fauna aspect of it but the big colorful initial in the center and then detailed flowing quilting all around on the white fabric. 

Practice Placemats - Free Motion Feathers

I am not very good at just 'practicing' there has to be a result or product at the end of it. Perhaps this is why my French Horn and Piano career never took off!

With Christmas soon upon us I decided that I could use up some fabric and make some placemats - improving my free motion quilting as I went. My idea was to choose a theme (feathers and leaves) and make 6 placemats. Here they are:

This design is based off of Leah Day's Feather Leaves. Mine doesn't seem to look anything like her's but I like it none the less.

This design I would call a traveling feather design. Again referencing Leah's website you could use the same approach as she demonstrates in Swirling Feathers. However I did not do such tight curves as she uses in this demonstration.

Again inspiration from Leah's site - Flowing Leaves

This one is a mix between Leah's Pearled Feather and a Feather design on Page 55 of Doodle Quilting.

This one is a plain leaf inside with feathers on the outer edge of the leaf.

Then a traveling leaf/vine with one echo around each design.

Here are the placemats all together. They were a cute addition to the families Secret Santa game.