FMQ in August

    August is is half gone and I haven't done the month's challenge yet.  So today was it.  I began with a little pencil practice on the print out of Wendy's tutorial.  The Jester's Hat is similar to the swirls I love, yet different enough to need some muscle memory.
   At the top you can see my first attempt in pencil....oops, that is not right and I am out of paper.  Ahhh....the next try looks so much better.  And then I slipped in the little pointed plume in a couple of  hats, and then to fabric.

   I took no chance that I would have a false start.....I marked the first 3 or 4 motifs on the fabric with pencil.   That was a big help to get me going in the right direction.  I found I had a tendency to "revert" to my usual swirl and not stick with this motif.  So I really had to concentrate on the design.  I did a 12 inch square for this practice....and used the sponges for guiding instead of gloves.
  Wendy, you did a great tutorial and shared a very neat motif with us.  Thank you.  Check out her blog at Ivory Spring. 
 

 
    I will put in more pencil time and add this to my new sketchbook for quilting patterns.  LuAnn at May Your Bobbin Always Be Full  has been sharing photos of her quilting sketchbook.  I have a big book of print outs of motifs and the FMQ challenges, but my pencil practice is scattered all over multiple pads and journal books.  I picked this plain page---harder to find---small journal a while back.  So it is now where I will practice and draw off things I try and see.  This page is a sketch I did from one of her posts about plumes on a spine and plumes on curves.
   I am linking to August FMQ at Sew Cal Gal.
 Happy stitching.