Anybody here do hand quilting?

[MadrasT]

Last edited Sun Mar 10, 2013, 10:15 PM - Edit history (1)

After having completed 2 quilt tops, with 3 more halfway done... I am finally concentrating on actually turning one into a quilt.

I think I am finally getting the hang of the hand quilting stitch, but dang, it was really hard to get the motions down.

I have Jinny Beyer's "Quiltmaking by Hand" book but it really took a couple YouTube videos where I could see somebody doing it realtime for me to grasp what I was supposed to be doing.

I think I am looking for some reassurance that the more I do this, the easier it will get.

Now why I think it is fun to take perfectly good fabric, cut it in little pieces, and sew it back together again is another issue...

[SheilaT]

1. Why not machine quilt?

I don't quilt, but I have a sister who does. She does the quilting by machine. The biggest advantage is that she can complete a large quilt in relatively short time, compared to how very long it takes by hand. There was a reason for those "quilting bees" in the past.

Like anything, it will get easier if you keep on doing it.

And for what it's worth, I love doing fine embroidery by hand.

[MadrasT]

3. It's more about the process than about getting quilts done fast.

I like being able to do it without newfangled modern machinery. Just like people did 150 years ago.

Plus I have a black cloud hanging over me when it comes to Things Mechanical. (I have no fewer than 5 broken lawnmowers in the shed, and two broken sewing machines. I am just not good at machines.)

At the rate I am going it will take a year to finish one quilt, but that's OK.

[SheilaT]

5. Which is very much why I hand embroider.

Mechanical things don't trip me up generally, but the technology gods constantly torment me. Often things like computers don't work properly when I'm trying to use them. It's quite odd, and sometimes when I call in to a help desk the person on the other end cannot get things to work properly either.

On the other hand, the parking gods adore me. I ALWAYS get good parking spaces. Even if I'm just the passenger in the car, we get a good space. Some of my friends love taking me along with them.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. I guess you're talking about the rocking motion of the stitch. It takes practice.

[MadrasT]

4. Yup. Boy is it hard to learn!

I am getting better and faster as time goes by.

Fortunately I am pretty stubborn and won't give up. I am starting to get the hang of it and it is starting to be more relaxing than frustrating!

[dem in texas]

6. Hand quilting

Every once in a while, I will hand quilt. It is a big project to take on a quilt. I made a quilt for my granddaughter last year and when I finished the top, I decided to hand quilt it. I worked on it for about 3 months. Just a simple outline and straight stitching. It made the quilt nice, it had a better feel than the machine quilted ones, but as your posters are saying, it is so easy to have a the top machine quilted, that that is really the way to go.

Quilters used to look down on machine quilting, but if you go to the big quilt shows, most of the quilts are now machine quilted and look very nice.

I have a baby quilt my sister made and I am getting ready to hand quilt it for her. We trade work, it is hard for me to cut fabric, so she cuts the quilt pieces out for me and I do some of the sewing for her.