My first real practice piece, completely freehand

I joint an online Facebook group called Beginner Longarm Quilters.  They are a very supportive group with both beginners an experienced Quilters.

The Admin group came up with a competition of sorts, to help beginners to practice.  It gives you some direction, instead of just doodling.  I thought it was great!  They are teaching you new things, different designs and how to use them.  

Basically, they got together to design six 12" blocks joint together by 3" sashings and cornerstones.  You don't actually make a quilt, but instead you draw it on a plain fabric or in my case I just used my channel locks and sewed the pattern of the blocks right on the fabric.  I felt it was faster for me to do it that way.  They give you suggestions as to how to quilt it, but you could also do your own thing on them if you wish.

I reviewed the assignment for the first block and the video that accompanied it, and away I went to try it on my practice fabric. The block below is an Irish chain block. It is difficult to see the chain parts.  I may have to colour the chain parts so that it can be seen, but this is really only a practice piece.  Only I needed to know where the "pieces/parts" were to quilt it.

I definitely have a lot of practicing to do, but for my very first real quilting on my longarm, doing designs I've not done before, I think it looks good.  For the borders I chose patterns that I saw online that I wanted to try out.

This next picture is of the second practice block.  The block is a churn dish, also known as a shoo-fly block.  On this block the designer had us doing different designs from the first block.

I really enjoyed doing these two practice pieces and as soon as I find a bit of time, I want to do the remaining four blocks.  I plan to treat this as my before picture and down the road as I improve, I can see the progress that I have made, when I take the after picture.

Enjoy your day!