Free Motion Quilting

I've committed to the Free Motion Quilting Challenge at Sew Cal Gal.  The January tutorial is by Frances Moore and involves heart shaped leaves.

  Since I already had a practice piece on the machine, I added some large sections of these leaves.  The heart shapes came easily to me, but I really had to work at making sure the leaves were pointing different directions.

I need to make up my mind on how I'm going to do the sampler...I keep thinking that I may add other blocks and try more than 12 designs.

My hubby bought me Leah Day's From Daisy To Paisley and From Feathers To Flames for Christmas.    This section of the panel shows Pom Pom Parade done in pale blue with Frances' leaves above and below.

Modern Art (kind-of)

Paisley

some random square stippling

Tree Bark

Circuit Board

What started as Bubble Wand but I added and extra wands.

Spirals

Pebble Paisley

Echo Arches

I have learned several things with this set of stitches. 1) I really like designs with pebbles.
2) I am happiest about both the stitch length and the design shape when the repeat is 2 inches or less (like all the Paisley variations and Echo Arches).
I believe this is related to the fact that I don't have a machine table  or extension which means I have 3 inches to the left, 2 in front and 6 to the right of the needle in which to place my fingers to steer the fabric.

I'm off to change back to the walking foot so I can do a simple & fast straight line stitching on $2.25 Plus Tax, the quilt to which this sampler pillow case will belong.