My 1st Attempt at Free Motion Quilting and I Won Something!

I decided that as the little dog mug rug was going to be a small experimental piece that I would use it to try a variety of new techniques.

Pin basting:

I think it might work better for bigger projects, as it saves having to hand sew with those curved needles for ages.  However perhaps I used too many pins?  I found it rather fiddly and difficult to make everything work properly.  How many pins should be used?  Also the solid fabric was Klona solids, which is a fair bit thicker than quilting weight fabric perhaps it's almost Home Dec?  Anyways, I found it tricksy but I survived it.

Here is a picture of my free motion quilting:

I must confess that I did do several practices first on scraps of old sheeting that I'd cut up.  I hadn't realised that my sewing machine (Pfaff Select 4.0) had a special free-motion setting that could enable all sorts of fun things to be done.  I'm looking forward to practicing this technique more.  My initial attempts resulted in ooddles of bobbling on the back of the fabric with surplus thread galore.  Woops.

The background in the picture is a pale grey fabric (Klona solid again - not sure of its name) that I'm going to use to make the binding for the fabric.  The class that I did with Sarah Harper at The Workshop was so helpful in this as she is quite hands on with ensuring that you know how it all fits together and works properly.  I'm fortunate to live in one of the few parts of London that has a quilting shop :)

I'm going to finish on another note that has left my morning with a sense of glee.  I won my first ever giveaway of 'Tufted Tweeds' [Edit: It's Tufted Tweets silly...] scraps from 'Little Island Quilting'.  Thank you so much for picking me.  I'll post a picture of my loot when it arrives with me.

Hope you're all plan on having a marvelous weekend filled with crafting.