Hand quilting with a Big Stitch

Its been quite a few years since I hand quilted a quilt.  I can't even guess, but it has to have been 20 years at least!  At that time, all of the hand stitching was heirloom, which was with heavy waxed thread, small sharp needles, and 10-12 stitches per inch.  Those quilts were all hand basted together with long basting stitches that were taken out as the quilting was done.  

Modern quilts are hand stitched with heavy threads too - 12 weight is very popular and many companies are now supplying it in lots of colors.   I've been collecting some here and there and decided to try hand quilting again.  But this time, and on trend, is making big stitches with the heavy thread.  Not the tiny stitches of days gone by, and not basting stitches either.  

I picked the recent pallet cleanser to give it a try.  Probably not the best one as there are thousands of seam allowances to go through.   The threads I used are shown in the photo below.

The green ones are cotton spagetti from WonderFil in 12 wt and the navy blue is Sashiko from Japan.  The Sashiko is a 6 strand cotton thread that I separated into 3 strands that appears to be about 12 wt when separated.  I waxed both threads with Thread Magic and have been using a large eyed Sashiko needle. 

The big stitches are easy to make, but I find that I can only load one stitch at a time and still be able to pull the needle through the fabric and batting layers.  Below, I'm showing how the green shows up on the pieced fabric.  And how the navy looks against the blue. Unfortunately, the white batting is getting pulled to the top and shows up on the navy fabric.

In the picture below, I'm showing the backing side of the quilt.  I'm working on getting the stitches even on both sides.

I hope you like it so far!

Quilts are a Generous Gift

This isn't a story about me, but I'm involved.  You see, I used to teach a quilt class on the pattern "Pickle Dish".  Many of my close friends took this class from me and started their quilts back in 1999.   I got tired of making class samples, so I borrowed the students' blocks and sewed on them in later classes.  This is the story of one of my close friends and her quilt.

My friend, Lynn Patterson, decided to make her quilt HUGE and she decided to give it to her mother-in-law when it was completed.  But before the quilt top got finished, her mother-in-law died in a tragic car accident.  Talk about taking the wind out of your sails.  We all watched in agony for our friend as she sadly set aside this unfinished quilt.

Seven years later she decided to give the quilt to her sister-in-law, so she pulled it out and started working on it again.  Many years and many sewing hours later, she completed the top.  Then she started the arduous process of hand quilting this huge quilt.  She dragged that quilt everywhere and quilted like a demon.  This year at the holidays, and 16 years after she started, she got the quilt done and gave it to her sister-in-law.   I heard that there were tears everywhere when this generous gift was given away.

1999-2015 it says on the label.  It also has her mother-in-laws name, her sister-in-laws name, her name.  And wouldn't you know it, she even put my name on it.  OK, now look who's crying!  RIP Virginia.

Lynn's Pickle Dish Quilt

The quilt label