March BBA Challenge - Part 2

I have finished my BBA challenge project (see Monday's Part 1 post) and was going to post it on Tuesday, but held off until today.  Several reasons for this, one was presented in the Tuesday post but the biggest reason is, I was disappointed with my resulting product.  Now, don't get me wrong, I love the color combination, which is what the challenge was all about!  I was pleasantly surprised that what I thought was a little 'out there' combination, turned out to be beautiful and I can't say that enough!

I made a quilted Easter table runner. 

As you can see, it doesn't lie flat, although it might after it is washed.  It's all cotton, so it will probably soften up in the washing process. 

Not to belabor my disappointment, but I am also just learning to free motion quilt on my standard machine which does not have a stitch regulator.  To get an even stitch you must learn to have an even moving hand while sewing in the pattern you chose.  Stops and starts cause a stitch with uneven stitch lengths.  You might be able to see them in this picture. Larger stitches can be seen at the bottom of the picture if you look closely:

And there were stitching curves that had corners in them, which is not what I was going for.  All stitch lines should have had flowing curves.  But worst of all is that I didn't think ahead to the quilting process before I did it.  I should have used a basting spray between the layers, so while quilting there would not be any layer slippage.  When one quilts on a frame, which I don't have, the three layers of fabric are held taunt.  This prevents any excessive pleats or puckers in the fabric.  Mine has plenty of puckers, which I am not happy about!

 
I was able to fix this somewhat, but it still makes me unhappy with the finished product.  Oh well, practice makes perfect, they say!  Oh boy, could I use that new machine I have been wanting that has the proper hopping foot/walking foot, that would have helped too!  But that is another story.

As to my initially not liking red and turquoise together, maybe I could have learned something from my little 5 year old grand daughter, LaRaya, seen here with her sister, Vivienne.

 Live and Learn!

P.S.  This is for the Blogging Business Artisans March Challenge.  Hop on over to our team blog to see the other participants came up with in Red and Turquoise!