String & Story Presents A Quilting Rockstar Course:
Free Motion Quilting Academy
Transform from a nervous beginner to a confident intermediate Quilting Rockstar in just 12 weeks!
Welcome to FMQA
Free Motion Quilting Academy is the first comprehensive online course that teaches you FMQ and how to finish your quilts from the privacy and comfort of your own home.
Pssst! I know a secret...
YOU are a Quilting Rockstar.
I know, Rockstar, you have been drooling over free motion quilting at QuiltCon, Paducah, or Instagram for awhile now, but you’re absolutely sure that only OTHER QUILTERS can learn to stitch such magic.
YOU can finish your own quilts-- bee-yoo-tee-fully-- right at home on your domestic sewing machine.
Here’s why finishing your own quilts is awesome:
YOU can finish your own quilts-- bee-yoo-tee-fully-- right at home on your domestic sewing machine. Here’s why finishing your own quilts is awesome:
It saves you money. Sending quilts out may allow you to skip the “complicated” steps of basting and quilting, but if you’re a quick piecer, those longarming bills add up fast.
It saves you time. No more waiting for your quilts to arrive home again. When you’re ready to wrap up a project to clear space in the sewing room, give an amazing gift, or get something fresh on your bed, you have the awesome sauce skills to get ‘er done.
It gives you creative control. Ever had a vision for a quilt but felt like you had to settle for something else because of time, skill, money, or communication challenges? When you are the piecer and the quilter, you have amazing creative freedom to execute your quilting dreams exactly as you dreamed them.
It’s super fun! I love cutting up fabric and sewing it back together to see all that mix and match piecing magic, but doing the quilting too means even more time with those gorgeous fabrics PLUS getting to see the whole thing come to life as the FMQ adds texture and movement.
Excited to learn how to finish your own quilts like a Quilting Rockstar?
What is FMQA?
This complete, fear to fabulous course will transform you from a nervous, even overwhelmed, beginner free motion quilter, to a confident, skilled intermediate quilter in just 12 weeks.
In fact, FMQ Academy isn’t so much a class as it is a journey and an adventure of realizing that you are more creative and capable than you’ve allowed yourself to believe.
Yes, you’ll learn the nitty gritty of setting up your machine and adjusting your tension, how to baste a quilt, and how to stitch over two dozen free motion quilting motifs.
But even more than that, you’ll have a specific, guided, step-by-step outline for not only learning motifs but also going from a quilt top to a complete and beautiful quilt, including learning how to decide what to quilt where.
In the end: your free motion quilting will be beautiful, but you’ll also enjoy the process of completing your quilts.
Free Motion Quilting Academy is the first course of its kind that:
Allows you to learn FMQ from the privacy and comfort of your own home.
Lugging your machine out to class is inconvenient and time consuming, and learning on a dealer machine doesn’t always mean you can work well with your machine at home. Plus, it’s hard to learn a new skill if you’re nervous about what the students around you think. At home, you can be in your space, on your machine, and at your own pace.
Offers ongoing access to the instructor so you never feel alone or stuck. You’ll get quick help on live onlie Q&A sessions.
While the lessons are pre-recorded, I also believe real-time or nearly real time feedback is important. Inside the course community in Kajabi, I host live Q&A sessions during the 12 weeks of the course so I can help you overcome any hurdles each step of the way.
Encourages you to start with what you have, keeping supplies minimal, rather than urging you to buy a fancier machine.
I believe that the best machine to learn FMQ on is the machine you already own. 90+% of the time, your machine is capable of at least basic free motion quilting, you need very few new accessories, and the belief that learning takes a lot of expensive gizmos is just a gimmick.
Connects you to other rockstars-in-training around the world so you can help and encourage each other.
While it can be difficult to learn something new while sitting next to a stranger, it is also valuable to learn in community. The private community allows you to get to know and share your work with FMQA Rockstar alumni and your fellow Rockstars-in-Training so you never feel alone as you learn.
Is ready when you are, regardless of geography or time zone, with on demand, prerecorded video lessons.
Whether you live around the globe from me, have a day job, work nights, have kids at home that make your schedule irregular, or anything else, the meat of this course is pre-recorded, so you can watch it whenever you want! Plus, once you purchase, you have access forever, to watch and rewatch as often as you want or need.
Free Motion Quilting Academy will reopen for enrollment in August 2023.
Here’s what’s included in the Academy:
Introduction
Let’s talk housekeeping: meet me, view our course schedule, join the community, and review the supply list.
Unit 1: Foundational Skills & First Motifs
Successful free motion quilting is built on a foundation of healthy habits and strong basics. In this module, I teach you about the “extra” skills of FMQ (like basting and good posture) as well as the four essential FMQ motifs.
Unit 2: Beginner’s Motif Toolbox
These 6 motifs are some of the MVPs (most valuable players) of a useful free motion quilting “toolbox,” and they continue to grow your skills and give you more textures to add to your quilt.
Unit 3: Finishing the Toolbox/Continuous Curves
Continuous curves are a classic and useful technique for backgrounds, heavy piecing, and more. Plus, by changing their shape a bit, we can create some fun, modern motifs.
Unit 4: Fancy Fillers
This module introduces some truly fancy fillers that will make delicious textures on your quilt.
Unit 5: Riff Quilting & More
You are getting pretty darn good at this FMQ thing! In these lessons, we look more seriously about motifs to quilt negative space, learn how to riff quilt, and begin feathers.
Unit 6: Feathers!
Feathers, feathers, feathers! If basic feathers are fun, fancy feathers are FABULOUS!
BONUS: Quilting Plans
Nervous about how to choose motifs for your quilt and how to decide what to quilt where? I have a whole bonus module for you about creating quilting plans so you can draw yourself a quilty “road map” and enjoy the stitching process.
Imagine this…..
Just a few months from now, you’ve finished all of your own quilts.
No more waiting on or paying the longarmer; no more settling for something simple when you really want to go all out on the quilting. Instead, you will be able to quilt your quilts when and how you want, with skill, confidence, and enjoyment.
The Full Free Motion Quilting Academy Experience
FMQA Course ($997 value)
Access six units of quality video lessons teaching you all the skills you need for successful free motion quilting, from start to finish:
Instruction on preparing your machine and quilt for FMQ
How to make a quilting plan and know what you want to quilt where, before you start stitching
Close up videos of how to draw and stitch two dozen free motion quilting motifs
BRAND NEW, 50+ page course workbook that includes quick guides, doodle pages, and more!
Private Community ($500 value)
This community in Kajabi is the super secret sauce! In the group, you get:
12 livestreamed Q&A sessions with me
The ability to ask questions and share your work in the group at any time
A community with course alumni as well as your fellow Rockstars-in-Training
Lifetime membership in the group so you’re always connected with the FMQA Community
That’s a total value of more than $1,497!
An amazing, deal when you consider the cost of sending quilts to the longarmer year-over-year. Or consider the cost of taking multiple in person classes that may or may not get you results.
But all this can be yours for the price of just $327 USD
(or 3 payments of $112 USD)
You get the course, the Private Community, and the LIVE Q&As!
That’s right -- for the cost of sending just ONE quilt out, you can learn to quilt all of your quilts forevermore.
What FMQA Grads are saying:
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Bente A.
I loved the Academy and the course gave me so many skills and tools to become a confident quilter. I had done meanders before, but wanted to learn more free motion motifs. Now I have a great toolbox which I can use on everything and the extra bonus was how to make quilting plans.
I am very happy and grateful with what I have learned. Working in my own pace on my own time has been very much needed in order to complete the sampler and whole cloth.Thank you HollyAnne!
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Therese L.
As a newbie quilter with lots of new pieced tops, this course gave me the tools and confidence to feel comfortable in completing a quilt from start to finish!
I found the community to be super beneficial in staying connected and accountable. So much more fun to learn with peers and cheer each other along in our FMQ journey!
Thank you so much, HollyAnne! This is a fantastic course that I would highly recommend to any quilter interested in becoming better at FMQ. :)
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Casey M.
“FMQA was absolutely amazing! I went from being completely intimidated by free motion quilting to feeling comfortable enough to quilt my own quilts before I even graduated!
I have an amazing toolbox of free motion motifs to use in the future and I can't wait to finish even more quilts myself.
HollyAnne is so positive and encouraging and breaks it down so free motion quilting is no longer intimidating.”
Let’s talk about the most common reasons why Rockstars-To-Be like you often quit the free motion quilting journey before it really gets started.
Reason #1: You Took the Class
And it didn’t “stick.” Classes at shows and even your local shop can be a real investment, and it’s discouraging when you don’t feel like it had the lasting impact on your quilting skills that you were hoping for. Rather than risking more disappointment and more “lost” money, it’s easier to “bet on a sure thing” and keep paying the longarmer or keep straight line quilting. For some reason, we don’t often talk about whether classes really make a lasting impact on the students’ quilting skills and habits, but that’s exactly a great teacher’s job.
Reason #2: You Were Never the Artistic One
Free motion quilting just looks so darn artsy, and you were always the math one or the reading one-- not the drawing one. Never mind the fact that you find yourself daydreaming about swirls and feathers, and that you are perfectly capable of writing your own name-- you’ve convinced yourself that being able to draw stick people is a requirement of FMQ proficiency.
Reason #3: You Are Very Busy
A day job, kids or grandkids, travel… you make the time to do some piecing, but won’t free motion quilting take hours and hours and hours to learn? You want to learn, you’re willing to practice, but you do actually have a life, too.
Reason #4: Your Machine Will Definitely, 100% Not Be Able to Keep Up
It’s not that fancy to begin with… it’s old… the throat space is small… and it will certainly burst into flames if you dare to adjust the tension. Maybe it’s better to leave well enough alone until you can afford that fancy longarm your friend has.
Let’s Get Real
These are just excuses straight from your inner critic because trying new things feels hard and scary.
Finish Your Own Quilts Like A Quilting Rockstar
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Deb Brown
“I would see people move their quilts under the needle with such ease and precision, and knew I wanted to feel that same sense of accomplishment, but it never happened...Until Free Motion Quilting Academy.
The formatting of the class was easy and HollyAnne was always there with a healthy dose of, "You can do this Rockstar!" I loved having access to the lessons anytime and I was even able to complete a few small projects before graduating because my practice motifs gave me the confidence to try and the proof that I could do it!! Because of FMQA I know I will continue this quilting journey and am equipped to finish the quilts that I start!”
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Dianna M.
I love the enthusiasm and support that HollyAnne Knight brings to the String and Story Rockstar community with FMQA. When my doubts started to creep in, I asked questions and found the answers I needed to begin quilting with confidence!
I am amazed how much I was able to grow my skills, without criticizing every mistake, loving the results every step of the way. A positive and relaxed attitude brings so much joy to the process!!!
HollyAnne makes learning to FMQ fun for everyone and the class is inclusive for all quilters at all levels.
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Gabrielle D.
“I loved the Academy! I was a total beginner and, as promised, I am now a confident intermediate Free Motion Quilter/Rockstar! I can't wait to apply my skills to my quilts and finish them for myself. I can see myself referring to the resources in the future to check on technique or review skills and motif as I go.
I know it seems scary to quilt your own quilts. But this course will give you the skills, tools, experience and confidence to do just that! HollyAnne will take you step by step in this process, she is a boss and lives up to her promise to guide you to quilt with confidence!!”
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Francie Jo Sulgrove
“I went from beginner to intermediate [quilter during FMQ Academy].
Before I started I could not make a curved line at all! Now I love making curvy motifs!
The support and encouragement to from HollyAnne and other rockstars is so helpful! Worth every penny!”
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Bethany A.
I loved HollyAnne's enthusiasm about her teaching and her ability to show the different motifs clearly on paper and on a full size quilt. I learned that doodling on paper was the key to figuring out the flow of each motif.
I went into the class thinking I knew which motifs I would like and which I would not. It turned out differently! I love that the class required me to try each motif and show that you did. My sampler may not have each motif perfectly, but I learned so much and love the results!
Join the Academy
I am so excited to watch you become a true Quilting Rockstar, just like my previous students.
You need a free motion quilting class that lasts longer than a few hours, shows you how to use your machine not just a fancy dealer machine, allows you to practice at your own pace and on your own time, and gives you an ongoing way to ask questions and get help when you get stuck.