{Post 1,247} Log Cabin Wall Hanging

I have not worked on this quilt for a year.  This afternoon I completed two of the cream rows.  Now I just have one dark "ring" and one light "ring" to hand quilt.  I will probably bind it soon (before the hand quilting is finished) so the edges don't ravel.  This is my focus project for the next few days.

It's 43" square and will live in my living room when it's finished.

{Post #916} Thimble Time!

Bonnie is having a link-up Monday about thimbles.  I have used many different kinds of thimbles.  For a long time now I've just used the cheap ones available at Mary Jo's or Wal-mart.  Here is a pic of an extra large one.  I used to use this size, but now a large fits more comfortably.  The good thing about this type is that it is inexpensive and widely available.  What I like about this is that it has a deep grid on the top as well as on the sides to keep the needle from slipping out.

I hand quilt without a hoop (I used an oval and a border quilting hoop in the past that I will be selling at the next yard sale).  I baste about every 4 inches across the quilt.  I find that going hoopless helps make the hills and valleys necessary for getting a good stitch.  The hoops were helpful for when I first started.


Using a thimble is unnatural at first.  You must make yourself use one until it is second nature.  My children have teased me when I am looking for my thimble and it's on my finger.  A good book on hand-quilting is one by Ami Simms.  I have loaned mine to a friend, so I don't know the exact title.  Like any new habit or hobby, at first one has to follow the instructions step by step until it becomes natural.  


It's all about habits.  One other seriously strong habit I have developed is putting my needle in the top of my shirt/blouse/jumper when I am waiting to rethread or just "setting it down".  I haven't lost a needle in many years due to this little habit.


I don't wear an under finger covering.  Like others whose hand quilting stories I've read, I know when I feel the needle on my finger (or callous), it's time to start the needle back up through the quilt sandwich.  Obviously the needle is not pushed down hard enough to draw blood.  


Probably the most helpful tool in my hand quilting is my chatelaine.  See it here.  A dear friend made it for me, after which I hand-quilted these beautiful antique blocks, given to me by my father-in-law.  

The chatelaine keeps all my supplies together, and I finished this in record time.  I quilted inside each string (because some of the fabrics were very fragile and I felt they needed the stability).  Then I hand-quilted "X's" in the sashing strips and Baptist fans in the outer border.


I hand quilt a lot of the quilts I make for my own family, especially table runners and wall hangings.  I love the softness it gives the quilt as well as the control for where the stitches are made.


Here's two more of my hand quilted projects:

Best advice about hand quilting is practice, Practice, PRACTICE.


~Joan

{Post #798} Seeds of Kindness 3/4 Hand Quilted

I read something really funny on someone else's blog today.  Made me feel all organized and together.  Ha ha ha...

It had to do with hand quilting, in case you're wondering about the relevance...

"This week I had a delightful addition to my morning ritual. After my typical activities (pawing through the basket of clean laundry for my clothes and running to the bus stop with wet hair), I tried a little hand quilting on my way to work."

If I quilt in my spare time this next couple of weeks instead of starting new projects, this might really happen!!

If you have just recently started reading my blog, let me introduce you to my baby, my pride and joy, my hand-cut, hand-pieced, and 3/4 hand-quilted labor of love...

My Seeds of Kindness quilt.  You can read all about its history here.  This picture shows it lying on top of my queen-sized bed.  See the spool of gold thread and the little piece of white ribbon near the bottom in the center? 

There is it...I have quilted on both sides of the core going horizontally as it lies, and from the left side all the way over to the spool.  So you can see I have about half of the quilt (the right half) to quilt one direction.  I also have about 1/8 of the border quilted.  I plan to devote my hand quilting time to this project until it is finished.  Stop laughing!  I mean it.

I use the safety-pinned ribbon to mark my place when I get to the end of a thread.  It used to take me 10 minutes or more to find where I left off quilting.  Now I just hunt for the ribbon.  Much faster!

Elisabeth has started taking piano from Rachel's piano/violin teacher.  The interpretation of that is I don't need to be there since E can drive herself and R there.  That means I have at least 2 more free hours on Mondays.  I think I'll just hand quilt while I wait for my laundry to need processing! 

My machine (Janome) is still at the shop.  Just got off the phone with the repairman.  Sounds like he hasn't even looked at it yet.  Yikes!!

~Joan

Making a Hand Quilting Stencil

I was doing some more hand quilting on this little runner and realized it would be neat to use the shape of the six-pointed star in the center of the "rings" and in the edges. It was easy to make a stencil template to trace around. I got a plastic file folder and set it on the block, then traced with a Sharpie marker. I put it where I wanted on the quilt to see how it would fit. I cut it out with scissors inside the marker lines. Perfect! and FREE!! The perfect price.

I just realized that on the next picture, I would need to rotate the shape a little to get it to form the diamond where the pieced star falls.

~Joan

More Hand Quilting

Here is my other hand-quilting project. I call this The Grass is Always Greener (Click on the link to see all past posts for this quilt). To explain the quilting...I did a machine-stitched meander quilting in all the green areas. Everywhere except for the cream and the 4-patch inside of it.

I don't like the quilts to have varying amounts of puffiness, so I am hand quilting in the ditch around the cream square and an "X" through the 4-patch from corner to corner on each block. I am marking in the cream area with a water soluble marker to make it easy to see and remove.

Since I had several hours to quilt this past Sunday afternoon (stayed at church with nothing to do, boo hoo), I am over half finished with the blocks. The binding is sewn down by hand about 1/4 of the way around, too.

Closer...four of the blocks that have been quilted...

...and closer still. This was an incredibly easy block to piece. The book I got the pattern from had a lot of neat tips in it for making this block a piece of cake.

My only "recipe" for the color layout was that I did not use greens in the outermost part of the block. That is because they were surrounded by greens, and the design would have been lost if they blended in.





I have always been partial to wearing green clothes because I have green eyes. Now I guess that gives me license to wear this quilt around the house...or not.

~Joan

Quilted Cotton Seeds

Above is the progress on my spool quilt. I am very discouraged because I am not hearing back from the woman that is sending my last set of 25 blocks. It's been nearly a month since I wrote her. I am at the point where I need to just fill in the last corner. I really want to wait to get the last set so I can mix them together. Assistant: very cute 10-year-old son. I am not sure if I should just go ahead and piece 25 more blocks of my own or what.

I am so glad I blog. I was able to look back and see where all the little HSTs came from for this next top. I remember that I had enough to make this quilt and one top to sell from wherever it was. Here is the quilt and picture of this one unquilted.

I've been working on it the past week or so and am nearly finished hand quilting the center. I'm quilting it with lines about 1" apart that go in the ditch of the pieced rows. My border is looking wavy since the quilting is pulling the center in a little. The yellow threads are my basting.

Here is the whole thing. The HSTs finish at 1" square. I am finished up to the last large block in the top left corner. Now I'm wishing I had continued the quilting right into the border. I guess the reason I didn't was that I am using a dark tan thread, and I did not want it showing up that much in the border.

I am hand quilting one other "piece", but I'll photograph that in the morning light. These were taken in my sewing room after sundown, so the lighting isn't so great.

Good night!

~Joan

Forgot the Grand Finale

What can I say...my whole weekend was my tooth.

I couldn't capture the perfect picture to present. You'll just have to come by in person to examine and enjoy the quilty crinkliness and texture.

But, without further ado (didn't realize the above was ado), I present my hand-quilted Anka's Scrap Bag quilt...

This puppy even has a label. Since the other two seamstresses couldn't remember our start date either (or what decade we actually finished the rows, LOL), I just put an end date on the label. It seemed the prudent thing to do. So the label reads, "Anka's Scrap Bag pieced by Laura Downs, Robin Puma, and Joan Parker. Hand-quilted by Joan Parker. April 2010."


The End.

Good AM From Gatlinburg

This is the last row on my "row quilt". I finished the quilting on it last night, after playing Boggle (which I won, only because Emily was under the influence of Benadryl) and rummy (which I lost, only because Benjamin takes big chances and had lots of luck!).

Remember that the bright yellow stitches are my basting and will be removed.

Here is all that remains to be quilted in the quilt center...the cream sashing rows and inner border. I'll probably be working on that in the van on the way home this AM. Wish me luck...on the way here our 3-hour trip ended up being over ten hours because of closed interstates and SNOW in the mountains.



I have the top-most row finished and most of one long side. Still a-plenty to do, but a fun kind of design. I am toying with the idea of hand-quilting the wide outer green border, but still entertaining the idea of machine quilting it since it won't show that much. I marked the stencil with a Mark-B-Gone marker. Moving along rathery quickly.

This was all that remained of the binding that needed to be hand-sewn to the back. I would have finished it while I lounged in the hotel room alone yesterday afternoon, but I left my box of quilting supplies in the van. I still got some much-needed rest, but no more sewing for me. At least then!!

Notice the seam running somewhat diagonally vertically? That was because of a mistake I made on the backing (and the batting, but you can't see that). Evidently when I was basting the quilt, it was not on square as much as it should have been. Since I am so miserly with materials, I didn't have enough batting or backing to reach the edges of the quilt in all directions. So that created additional work of adding a small strip of batting and backing along two edges of the quilt before it could be finished. Note to self: having an extra couple of inches of batting and backing just might save me an extra hour or two of work.

Bye!

~Joan

First Flower Block of Row #5...

Here is the first block of my row #5. Each flower, flower center, and leaves are the same, framed with the same cream fabric. The outside triangles are different in each block. You can see that the second block is framed with gold triangles.

I wish I could hand quilt several hours a day. I LOVE it!! It is relaxing and rewarding to see the quilt come to life as the lines of stitches are laid.

~Joan

Hand Quilt No More on Row #4...

A little industry goes a long way. I am counting the top row of half square triangles as a row, so I am finished with the fourth row. There are four more, so I am halfway finished. The next row is a particularly cute one. I will show a picture after I get a block finished.

I am using a stencil to quilt large and small pumpkin seeds touching along the cream separator rows, so even after the pieced rows are finished, there is a long way to go. But even with that said, I am encouraged at the progress.

~Joan

Hand Quilting Spree

Above is my row quilt. I have had this set aside for ages, but I'm hand quilting on it again. Susanna inspired me. I took it to church last night because I was over an hour early for a ladies meeting. Got much accomplished. The fun of hand quilting is seeing the texture that pops out once an area is quilted. You can see other parts of this same quilt here.

This quilt was pieced with two friends, one of whom I've never met in person. We also pieced this quilt together. Such fun memories!

Stay tuned for more quilty adventures...

~Joan

Susie is Hand Quilting!

My Susanna (aka Susie) pieced a very cute I Spy quilt top some time ago. I offered to machine quilt it for her, but to my surprise, she wanted to hand quilt it! I gave her a short little lesson, and off she went. She is following in her older sisters' ability to do much with little instruction.

~Joan

Quilting in the New Year

Inspired by Tonya, who I've never met in person, but have read her blog faithfully, I tried my hand at marking freehand fans tonight. it was sooooo easy. These are 1-1/4" apart. I decided to quilt them with white thread on navy blue fabric. Have I lost my mind? Partially, LOL!!

This is what I got finished in less than an hour. Some of my friends say I piece and quilt entirely too quickly. It's a burden I'm willing to bear! These are going so fasy. When I quilt the blocks, I have to turn the quilt at the end of every piece because I can only quilt from right to left. That takes time.

My family, parents, and temporarily adopted daughter watched "Flywheel" tonight. It is by the same church that made "Facing the Giants" more recently. A very moving story line about a husband/father/used car salesman who is not doing a good job at any of those things and turns his life over to God. Watch it if you haven't. After the movie, we prayed to thank God for the past year and trust Him for the one coming up. I hope you do the same.

~Joan

Hand Quilting Godsend

This is a Christmas gift a friend made for me this year. It is called a chatelaine. It's already been so useful in keeping all my hand-quilting supplies together. She paper pieced the strap, and it has neat features...


The third square up from the bottom above the spool of thread has a magnet sewn under the top layer of fabric. I don't use this much, but it is a cool feature.

This is a built-in needle book that snaps closed. It is also on the thread side.

This is on the scissors side. It is a little pocket for my thimble. What a GREAT idea! Right below it is another pocket that I keep my hera marker in when I'm doing a quilt that I am using it on.

These are "hangers" for scissors and thread. They are thin straps with snaps at the end. I am using safety scissors because all I'm doing with them is cutting thread. I started with my pair of trusty Gingher embroidery scissors, but they are way too pointy and sharp. I didn't lose any blood, but I had to hold my breath that they wouldn't fall open and inflict a fatal wound to me or a quilt.

Just wanted to share this special gift with you.

~Joan