Free Motion Machine Quilting - Attempt #1

The fear was real.  I created a little practice sandwich, used a fabric pen to create sections on the practice fabric, dropped the feed dogs for the first time on my machine, installed the free motion foot that came with it, and was ready to start my first attempt at free-motion machine quilting.

Of course, I didn't leap in blindly.  Thanks to YouTube, I was able to raise my confidence that this practice piece would be what I needed to get started with free-motion machine quilting.  Sure, I would need several rounds of practice, but I could get started with this first sampler I was about to create.

Now, my stitches varied widely in length, and some of my trial patterns were more successful than others.  I shared the sampler with my quilt support group on Skype and they were so encouraging with my first attempt.  Here it is below.  What do you think of it?

Once begun is partway done!  Getting started and learning that being creative is about getting messy and trying new things is the best thing to do.