FMQing a straight line

I've begun quilting the Craftsy 2012 Mystery Quilt following Leah Day's Craftsy class, Machine Quilting a Sampler.  It is all free motion.  The first thing to do was baste, of course, and I chose to baste using my quilt frame rather than how Leah demonstrated.  Yep, gotta swim upstream sometimes!  The next step is to FMQ in the ditch around each block.  Whewie!!!  Is that hard!  I was so tempted to use my walking foot, but this is, after all, a free motion quilting class, as teacher Leah pointed out.

FMQ in the ditch

Backside of FMQ around block

You can see the large U-shaped basting job I did!  Erratic to say the least, but it does the job.  You can also see the stitching around the block easier.

First starting out with the ITD FMQ, I did some frog stitching and trying again.  Then I began to relax a little and did better.  I find I mess up when starting off after stopping to adjust the quilt.  Once in a while the needle goes where I think it will and stitches forward in the correct place, but most often, it's off to the right or left.  I know it has to do with getting the quilt back in place after adjusting.  I'll eventually get that under control too, I suppose.  And yes, I am using a green thread for my quilting.  Another Leah-ism...how can you see your mistakes and get better if your thread is a perfect match to the fabric?  Gulp!  I keep telling myself...this is a learning quilt, this is a learning quilt.....

Next step will be free motion in and around the blocks.

Keep on Stitchin'!