Have you heard of Leah Day? I discovered her blog years ago, shortly after she began the Free Motion Quilting Project, an effort to create 365 free motion quilting designs. Leah Day makes beautiful quilts and is an inspiration to me as an independent quilt business owner. I was thrilled to be a guest on her podcast, Hello My Quilting Friends.
Free Motion Quilting
Everyone loves a challenge. Facebook is covered with 30-days-to-better-abs and 100-days-of-art. We see similar efforts in the quilting world – in fact Angie of GnomeAngel is launching another #100days100blocks to make Tula Pink’s City Sampler in May 2017. Back in 2007, Leah Day took the challenge idea to the max with 365 days of different free motion quilting designs. As you can imagine, it was practically impossible to share a new design every day so the project stretched out for more than a year. Leah generously shared a video tutorial of how she stitched each design, and that gallery is still available.
I turned to Leah Day’s Free Motion Quilting gallery when I made my Rainbow Twister. To keep things interesting, I used a different design for each column of blocks. I loved adapting her free motion designs to the pinwheel shapes of the twister blocks.
See the twelve designs I chose here.
Leah’s designs inspired the quilting on Blue River as well. I created the quilt with negative space to showcase the free motion designs. Get the details from my posts about water and my Blue River quilt.
Hello My Quilting Friends Podcast
I was delighted to be a guest on episode 19 of Leah Day’s podcast, Hello My Quilting Friends. I admit to a huge fangirl squeal when I got the invitation! Having followed Leah’s blog for so long, I felt like I knew her and we had a great conversation about quilting, especially choosing color and design. Listen here!
Leah has worked very hard to grow a quilting business, which is inspiration for my own entrepreneurial quilting journey. Her video tutorials are fantastic and she offers wonderful quilt-alongs that showcase both piecing the top and quilting it as well. She definitely delivers the total package!
I hope to meet Leah Day in person sometime. She inspires me with her pursuit of the craft, especially her Goddess series. What do you find most interesting in her work?
