It's a challenge

  The McTavishing lessons / practice is a challenge for me.  I spent the afternoon viewing the videos, looking for more, and then facing the paper.  I won't show my first attempts, so don't even ask.....they are in the shredder already.  But, finally, I began to see how these designs come together.

                                                                                     In one of Karen McTavish's videos, she is drawing the design and describes it as cartoon hair, and waves her arms around.  Then she says, "Farrah Fawett" hair, and I get it.  Flips, and curves, and waves....... I remember that era!

   So how to get those flips, and waves?  She uses a lot of "S" lines to begin.   But studying a bit more of her quilting,  I began to see the letters  J, C, and U.  So, now I see them....can I draw them?  Sure, not a problem.     The challenge came when I tried to combine them.
    I kept  drawing the same wave.  The trick is to remember to change the direction and throw in a curve going against the first wave.  That is easier said than done for me.  I think I just have that one track mind, and all my "muscle memory" knows is swirls.  So I will be filling up a few more pages as I practice this week.

   The second thing I noticed about her patterns is the illusion of depth.  Some lines move toward you and others move away.  Those little filler c's  seem to be the trick to getting the depth.
  And finally, the spacing.....not too good here.  Her spacing between the lines is more even.  Mine is all over the place and probably will be when I stitch.

   Stitch....did I say stitch?  Yeah, I decided  to try on the machine to get a base line of what I would be facing.

   This is about a 10 inch square that I tried.  By the time I got to the edges, I was frustrated.  I was lost or in a spot and did not know where to go.  It looks nothing like my drawing.  The spacing is all over the place.  And the waves disappeared.
   OK, I have a challenge here.....back to the drawing board.  I remember being frustrated with learning to do feathers, so I guess the same is going on here!  More drawing, and practice batts needed......happy stitching.

  I am linking to the Linky party at Amy's Free Motion Quilting Adventure.