Hand Quilting Never Gets Old

When I first started quilting, I was not confident enough to try machine quilting.  I spent too much money and time creating my quilt tops to mess them up with bad or shaky machine quilting.  So, I hand quilted all of my first quilts. Consequently, it took me a long time to finish my creations, and the recipients of them were often about to blow out their first candles or celebrate the next milestone before I finished.   In the interest of self-preservation and timely gift giving, I have learned to do some machine quilting that I can be proud of, but when I have time, my first love is still hand quilting.

Hand quilted circles were marked with plastic bowl lids of various sizes.

This is an extra long throw I made for our nephew and his then new wife.  I think they were married a year plus before I finished it.  Not bad, but I did start it shortly after she said yes!

The baby quilt below was for my niece's second daughter.  By the time I finished it, I was so in love with it that I kept it.  Of course I made another one for her.

I learned a great deal while quilting this.  First, there are no real quilt police, so just jump in and try fun shapes and crosshatches.  Second, I like a fine little pencil line to mark my quilting patterns.  Fons and Porter has a great mechanical pencil that is erasable and quite handy.  Third, if you poke yourself and bleed on the fabric, and you will, spit on it.  The blood will come out better that way.  And finally, the smaller the needle, the smaller the stitches.

Sweet little nine patch variation.

This is my latest project. I found this sweet quilt top in my mom's sewing room and decided that it would be nice to complete it for some future family baby. She loved traditional fabrics; I appreciate them, but I really like more modern prints.  I went to my favorite shop and found a nice pink print for the backing and a yellow for the binding that will match my taste a little better and now am in the process of stitching to my heart,s desire.  I only hope that I can do my mom proud and make it something she would have loved too.

M

Modern pink print for backing.