Free Motion Quilting vs. Me

I love the look of free motion quilting.  I had yet to try it yet just for fear of spending hours with my seam ripper and the TV.  I eventually want to use free motion for my next quilt, so I grabbed some scraps and put together a quick potholder.

I put together one disappearing 9 patch square using 3" squares. Finished pot holder size is about 8.5".

I added a double layer of batting...

Crossed my fingers... and started!


My stitch lengths weren't so hot:


and the back was embarrassing (wtf was I doing):


So... I spent some time with the seam ripper... adjusted the tension... tried again. (repeat more seam ripping and tension adjusting) It started to look a bit better. I still have to work on getting nice rounded corners and losing those 90 degree angles....



My stitch lengths improved a little, but I can still see many flaws:


I prefer not to look closely at the back:



but if you zoom in really close it looks cute!


Tada! Not to shabby for a first try of something that I'm just going to get dirty in the kitchen anyways :)