A HAND QUILTER IS BORN

It's finished!

This weekend I was able to put the 

finishing touches (AKA...binding)

on my mini chevron quilt.

It's not perfect, 

but I LOVE it!
The beginning stitches are shorter than the ending stitches.
I obsessed over it...but I let it go.

 I have always loved hand projects. My 1st adventure into the

"sewing world" was a tiny cross stitch of a baby blue whale,

which BTW came out looking like a blueberry!...a BLUEBERRY!

Anyway, 

I think that I mentioned that this is one of my all time

favorite quilting books over HERE:

It inspired me to finally let go and give hand quilting a try.

As a hand quilting novice,

I did a quick Internet search to gain more information/confidence.

Here are my favorite hand quilting sites:

1. Sarah Fielke (yep, she is the co-author of my inspiration book).

She has an Awesome  free Craftsy video on her site

which is UBER helpful! I know because I watched over & over 100 times

and I'm surprised that I didn't cause the site to crash.

2. Molly Flanders is a novice hand quilter's inspiration!

Take a look and you will see what I mean.

3. Trish of Notes of Sincerity also has great hand quilting tips.

My thoughts on hand quilting

1. Thread:

For this project, I used Valdani Thread because it is the only thing that I had

on hand at the time. I do have Comso thread (which I love for my stitchery projects)

but I didn't have a color that would match.

I haven't washed the mini quilt yet. I know that the thread is colorfast, but I 

just wanted to be sure and photograph my prized project

before I washed it...just in case...something were to happen.

2 Thimble:

I learned that hand quilting is all about the thimble. Not just any thimble...

but a proper fitting thimble. I bought this thimble on a whim (posted HERE)

and I love it.

It fits properly on my finger and it doesn't slip off. It also allows me to have the perfect

rocking motion for hand quilting.

It was slow going at first...like 6 stitches per hour, but once

 I got used to the thimble (and let go of my my stitch length obsession)

I was hooked!

3. Mixing Quilting Styles

For this project, I mixed machine quilting with hand quilting.

This is something that I never thought that I would do, but as you can see/read...I am in love!

I love it so much that if I had the time, I would do this on all of my quilts.

I love how the red stitches "pop".

So there you have it...another hand quilter is B-O-R-N!

Until Next Time,,,Happy Quilting

Little Lady Patchwork...the SHOP

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