August FMQ Challenge

Yep, I've finally made it to August! Now only September, October, November, December, and the bonus tutorials to go! :)

This month's artist, Wendy Sheppard, provided a "jester hat" pattern. Because I'm so behind, I did get to see how everyone else did on it, and I know some people struggled, so I was apprehensive.  Here's my first page of sketching; it did not go great.

The trick was figuring out how to transition from one hat to the next, while changing the direction/orientation of the hat.  What worked for me was actually tracing Wendy's line drawing to see how she did the transitions. I came up with a system where I alternate up and down hats, as you can see in that top line.  Then I just looped it around instead of doing a line.

There were definitely a few tricky spots where I wasn't sure where to go or how to transition.

Here is my completed placemat.  The verdict: I LOVE this design! I always enjoy stitching swirls and spirals, and this is a variation on swirls that I can definitely get behind.  I really love the texture it give to my placemat; some of the other designs we've done are great if you want to look at the quilting, but for fillers/background quilting they don't provide a ton of texture.  This one does the opposite; I mean just take the fact that it photographed so well!  I definitely see myself using this in future.

A few close-ups:

Thanks to SewCalGal for hosting!