October Quilting Efforts

 Another finish to show off! Gold Crossroads ended up being even sweeter than I expected. The original inspiration was from an old quilt I stumbled across in a second hand quilting book years ago. Still love it!

Gold Crossroads

I find it super interesting that I was hand quilting this particular quilt when the DS Wagon Wheel SAL started. How crazy is that? My quilt was made out of cut-out circles and also, it is appliqued to the background rather than machine sewn like the Denise Schmidt pattern. Super classic look though and it seems to look amazing in many, many color palettes.

Another 2024 finish!

Some day maybe I'll make a brighter version like hers, but for now, I'm just crushing on the texture the hand quilting brings! Quilting in a simple grid isn't something that I do very often for whatever reason. Laziness? Or more because I really, really hate marking my quilts. Such a chore. Ughh! Every now and then a quilt just calls out for the look though and wowsers, this was the right move for sure.

Sweet, simple color palette

This quilt is the first one in my 'Circle Games' series where I'm starting each quilt with cut-out circles from behind other quilts. Lovely to have it come to a true-blue finish and see that I'm not just wasting my time.

Sometimes it pays to mark the quilt....

Flower Power is coming along with the hand quilting too. It was the 'next up' in the hoop. It's pretty hard to see what I've been doing as the quilt is so dark. Trying to do very simple quilting with perle cotton as always. Nothing fancy here either. Strings are great fun to quilt organic straight lines through. Always makes me wish for more of them!

In the hoop

Old Fashioned Wildflowers is all ready for an outside border now. I went ahead and powered through the applique. Sometimes its easier to not think about the time involved and just takes big bites out of it till it's all done. Will probably put off figuring out the border till some other stuff gets wrapped up. There's a couple ideas percolating in the back of my brain so I'm feeling pretty good about it coming together properly. Will just keep the fabrics together with the quilt top until I'm ready to attack the next phase of the quilt. Sometimes that urge comes from out of the blue, you just never know.

All the hand work is done!

Not a great picture below, but I wanted to show the prep work for Bramble Blooms II-A. I'm already putting in the hand stitching. After finishing Old Fashioned I really wanted to dive right into something easier and the skinny borders feel so much better on my hands already.

Ready to pin

All the details and prep work are done for Bramble Blooms II-B too. I used the same flowers and just made them a bit smaller than those on the original quilt. Seems to suit these quilts better. I ended up incorporating the same leaf shapes from the first Bramble Blooms quilt too {very important to me for this project!}. I'm really liking how interesting these leaves look instead of my normal simple leaf look. It's also something that I feel will help keep this series of quilts more connected, having a continuity in the applique motifs. It's the simple things!

Getting it ready for hand stitching...

It always takes a chunk of time to get all the leaves and flowers cut out out and the vine pinned down into place. Much more time than I ever expect! Once the stitching starts though, it's free sailing for those of us who enjoy applique. I'm definitely eager to see if these two quilts look as good in person as I'm hoping for. Using older, less exciting fabrics usually means quite the slow build up and then lots of second guessing. Are these fabrics actually going to look good in these special little flower shapes? Yes, no, maybe so? I wanted to get these two quilts in particular moving along and then I want to start a couple new projects with fall colored palettes. I am positively antsy at the thought that fall might be over before I get a chance to start something new. I mean, there's only so many open-ended projects my brain can handle at a time!

Meanwhile, we've been having a little bit of company the past week or two and that of course means less time for quilting. Then today I spent most of an hour on the phone with Verizon whose customer service is frankly, quite pathetic. Isn't customer service just so terrible compared to how it was 30-40 years ago? Why in the world would I want to try and communicate with a machine?

Grandma's Fans is Complete!

 The brand new quilt finish is 'Grandma's Fans'!  This was started in 2021 sometime after my daughters wedding. Just felt like getting a couple of the fabric stacks moving and grooving.

Grandma's Fans Quilt is finishedd!

Didn't get the top together until September of 2022, but that's not really an extra long time for projects around here. You're probably thinking 'Wow! There's no applique in it.' but actually there is. All the wedges and quarter circle are machine sewn together, but then, well... I simply had to hand sew them to the background squares.

Doesn't really look like a quilt my grandma would have made

Just something that I prefer to do most of the time. Gotta have a couple hand applique projects in the works at all times. Might break out in hives otherwise! Plus, precision and circles are not my strong suit at all. 

Loving this hand quilting texture!

I've always really loved the fan quilts, such a lovely, classic design. Just never thought I'd make one in these lighter, brighter colors! The final inspiration {after soaking up many ideas for 'fan' quilts through the years, was this quilt. It's not very often that I make a quilt that so closely mirrors the inspiration but for some reason I fell in love with this particular quilt. 

Still happy about the change-up in fans presentation

I did change up the colors slightly and also, turned some of the fans, changing the look incrementally. My quilt just wasn't happy with all the fans pointing in the same direction! 

Love the text fabric backgrounds in mine sooo much. There's something about text fabrics that always make me smile and this design helped show them off a bit. Obviously, I didn't go off of a pattern, but made it up on my own. Always have to do things my way, don't I? It's going to be extremely hard to get rid of this quilt when the time comes. It's already earmarked for one of the nephew weddings someday! Probably. Maybe. Unless I change my mind....

Definitely a cuddly sort of quilt!

Mostly I'm just thrilled to have another quilt finish. Things are moving so slowly around here lately {in regards to quilting} that I wonder if I'm even a quilter? Ha. Nope. Not wondering at all. It's still my thing!

The background isn't stark white 'cuz of the text

Must be. Since I dream of quilts and see quilt patterns and ideas practically everywhere I go. And yes, I still have a notebook by my bed where I can doodle a quick quilt idea just before nodding off at night.*sigh

A happy looking circle of fans!

The hand quilting has picked up a little of late. 'A Tisket, A Tasket' quilt is the newest one in the hoop. It's got a very easygoing, cottage country sort of charm. I stitched in-the-ditch between all the blocks and now I'm coming back and doing some hand quilting with Perle Cotton thread. Always seems to makes the whole quilt perk up! The colors are very different from the prior quilt in the hoop, which isn't always a bad thing. Helps keep things interesting!

In the hoop

And the little baskets below are the current hand applique project finally finding its way to needle and thread. Got about half of them done now with the slightly larger {taller} baskets left to stitch. It's so lovely to sit and do hand applique. I know many of you detest the neede-turn application, but if everything is prepped and ready to go, I just love it. So satisfying! It's rather like painting a picture in fabric to my mind.

Baskets for 'Peace Always' quilt

That's it for now. Every now and then I pull out a stack of marinating fabric and fiddle around with it, trying to conjure up some good quilting mojo. Sometimes I go upstairs to my quilt room and try to soak it all in before I have to scurry and get back to whatever needs my attention more. It's been great seeing all the BBI quilt tops together--how very, very different they are! Have you seen how many there are now? Loving the creative response to the QAL prompts and how original everyone has been. Hopefully it hasn't been a waste of anyone's time. We only have so many quilts we can make in our lifetime, right?

All the Baby Quilts

So I got all the baby quilts done this week, labels and all! It felt really good to get these checked off the list.

Prickly Pears is done!

The first one is Prickly Pears, the baby girl quilt. It's made out of the cut-out pears from behind another quilt I made.

Loving the floral

You might think the gray pears are odd, but I really, really like it! I tried to use brighter, bolder prints for some of these blocks, even if they almost clashed. It ended up with a good cozy vibe and the backing fabric will hopefully make my daughter smile!

Who wouldn't want bikes on the back?

The second baby quilt finish is the Improv. Log Cabin quilt. The strips were not cut straight or measured at all. 

Improv. Log Cabin is done and dusted!

And in fact, the center Monkey Wrench block was improv. as well and never straightened.

Always a fan of Log Cabin quilts

If the quilt seems a little bit 'off' then that is why! Nothing to be ashamed of though, it just adds character. I did end up snipping a tiny hole in the backing fabric when pinning the quilt though. Just cutting a thread and missed and cut into the quilt.*sigh

How bout the dark backing fabric?

Thankfully, my daughter doesn't mind patches on things. Uggh. So annoying. The third baby quilt is made out of leftover blocks that have been languishing in the orphan bit totes.

Wish Upon a Star

It has a much softer look and feel, but it holds its own with the others just fine.

It's finished!

This one is being gifted to a long time friend of ours for her second baby. I rarely make or gift baby quilts to anyone other than family because our family is so very large. Well that, and I prefer making my big 'ol creative adventure quilts more.

The backing helps add to the baby feel

The backing fabric is a soft, babyish star fabric. Except that it had a surprisingly tough weave and was not the easiest to hand quilt. Got it done though! Yay!!

Hanging sleeves for the quilt show

I've also been working to get hanging sleeves on a couple of quilts. Not something that I particularly enjoy, but it needed to be done....

The Mountains Are Calling in the hoop

And last but not least, I've finally dove into the hand quilting part of the wedding quilt for my youngest son and his new wife. It's more a 'guy' quilt and I'm crossing my fingers the new DIL won't mind too much! {I plan on giving her a girly looking quilt later on.} Feels good to get this much of the freehand Baptist fan quilting accomplished. I'm loving the texture already! No marking whatsoever here.

Ok, that's it for now! We're just barreling through summer with hardly any time to breathe. Gotta get back to the to-do list and check a few other things off the list that aren't quilty related...

Trudging Along

 This is not a beautiful post, just a little update on progress for the past week or so. The pear blocks are appliqued and ready for further work now. Just contemplating how I want to frame the smaller blocks so end up being the same size as the larger.

Probably going to keep this arrangement

All the blocks for 'Old Fashioned' have been trimmed and now I'm sewing the rows together. It's all tedious work when the blocks don't have a lot of variation. Love these two color quilts when they are totally finished up and quilted, but it's a real effort putting them together. Soooooo boring sometimes! 

Starting to come together

All the blocks were laid out and the rows numbered before I remembered that the plan was for pieced blocks to be chopped in half at the top and bottom. Uggh... I almost backed out of the idea completely, but then reconsidered. The quilt will look ever so much more interesting to me if I stick to the original idea! Had to take five blocks, mark the centers, sew a seam on either side of the mark and then cut through the middle. That should hold the cut piecing stable at the edges of the quilt.

Always best to stabilize the outside edges of a cut block

Doesn't look like much, but I also managed to figure out the colors for the sashing on the Primrose Path quilt. Got all the pieces cut out and ready for a big sewing session. Should have cut long strips to sew together and then cut into pieced rows, but the math failed me. It's so much harder to determine when you're dealing with bits and pieces of cut fat quarters instead of larger yardage! I just threw up my hands and resigned myself to lots more sewing time.

Prep work

Yesterday was the day that I set aside for sandwiching and pinning the next quilts in the hoop. Not done with the current one yet, but it's getting closer and I know it's much, much easier to jump right into the next quilt if it's all ready to go once the hoop is empty. Apparently my mind is on the fritz lately as both of the backings were the size of the quilt tops. Uh huh. Didn't add any of the extra needed at all. And of course I didn't find out till the backings were already taped to the floor. It was terribly annoying. Thankfully my daughter offered to help pin the quilts later in the day so at least that part went really fast!

Next quilts up

While I've been hand quilting most evenings of the week, I haven't been putting in oodles of time with it. So many things taking our time and attention lately, I'm really starting to crave some down time.

Working on the outside of the quilt now

Won't be happening any time soon though as were already gearing up to head out on our annual camping trip with our church friends. I'm trying not to feel grouchy about it, but it's hard. Prices of fuel and groceries are gonna make it an expensive little vacay and me? I'd almost rather head to the ocean. It's always fun once we get there though and at least I'll get to see my grandkids there. That pretty much makes it all worthwhile.

A Stitch a Day Makes the Fidgets Go Away

It's been a busy couple of weeks. We had to leave town for a couple days to attend a cousins funeral and then last weekend, our grandkids came to visit. Yay! We're always up for that. Plus, there was a bridal shower for our new-to-be daughter-in-law. Wedding the end of April in Oklahoma! And our oldest daughter is expecting their first child. So very exciting. Shaping up to be one of those years. I almost turned the commenting off on the blog 'cuz I've been such a terrible blogger lately. It's all I can do to throw up a post once in awhile, much less, properly keep up with postings elsewhere.

Ormes Inspired getting some attention

I feel like the hand quilting has been massively neglected this year and it's been hard to get back into the regular routine of things. It's just one of those things where progress tends to happen very slowly. Then, little by little, that steady bit of effort {several evenings a week} can add up to a whole lotta by the end of the year! The current quilt in the hoop is getting the overall 'stacked hills' stitching treatment and I'm finally, finally closing in on the second row up from the bottom. This is a quilt where I wanted the stitching to mostly stay in the background. We'll see how it looks when more of the top is finished! So far I'm really liking the look and I'm usually fairly indifferent at this point. Crossing my fingers! 

Piddling away on the Hourglass Improv. quilt

Quilting time has definitely been a bit sporadic lately, but so have my moods as per which quilt project seems most interesting to work on. The hourglass quilt is to a point where all the larger hourglass blocks are stitched and now all of the smaller ones are sewn into 4-patch hourglass units too {didn't get a picture of that}. Time to lay it out on the design 'floor' and see where to go next! I just like to make sure auditioning time is mostly distraction free so I'm biding my time waiting on the perfect moment.

Making progress on the 25-Patch HST

I've also started sewing the 25-patch hst quilt blocks into rows. This project feels a little 'meh' at the moment. All the crayon color vibes are getting to me I guess. It's my own fault for trying to make it larger than the inspiration picture though. Just doesn't have the same look and feel as I was intending. Will have to look at it again later when it's all put together and see if my opinion changes any.

The start of Old Fashioned

A couple brand new projects are popping up around here for some reason or another. The cutting phase is getting close to being finished for the old fashioned yellow quilt. It's been a good excuse to use up more of the older fabrics that have been languishing in the stash totes. Don't know why exactly, but I have such a fondness for good cream fabrics. Always have had which means there is always an abundant supply on hand. Really hoping that these mellow yellow fabrics shine with the cream backgrounds and very simple design that's been chosen. Have you ever heard of the Crown block? That's what's happening here. Probably on point, but we'll determine that much later. For now, just need to get the blocks sewn together!

The start of Peace Always

Also, there just isn't nearly enough applique work prepped and ready to go around here. Makes me a little bit antsy! I gave into temptation, grabbed a marinating stack of fabrics and started in on the details. Quite an enjoyable afternoon pondering the exact shape that was needed for a basket, flowers etc. This quilt will be called 'Peace Always' and will be yet another medallion quilt. 'Cuz you know there's never enough of those! And they are so much fun to put together, playing around with all the interesting options available when making the quilt one row bigger. And then another row bigger until the quilt finally screams 'Enough!'. Well, maybe not a scream exactly. It's more like a very firm 'We're done now. You can go away'. Right? 

A Little Quilting and A Lotta Family

Would you be shocked if I said that life had been busy lately? What was it that I read the other day, something about our 'hustle culture' being the new norm? Yeah. Not by choice for most of us. I managed to squeeze in a few good minutes trimming off the points of the hsts and then throwing a few of them up on the wall. This isn't sewn together yet, still in full-on contemplation mode.

25-Patch Hsts

All those hsts sewn together properly would represent four blocks to the 25-Patch HST quilt. The look is overtly {almost obnoxiously} scrappy, yet somewhat vintage in look and feel. Most all of the fabrics used are in a 15 year range though. There is probably only one fabric that would truly be of vintage era though. I'm absolutely loving the mishmash of colors and sheer unpretentious quality that's already shining through. The Inspiration quilt has nine of these 25-patch blocks so I'll start with that, roughly following the original makers lead as to value. After those nine blocks are sewn, then we'll figure out the rest of the quilt. Pretty sure there will be lots of leftover units to play with.

Primrose Path blocks

I seem to be in this rut lately of making myself finish up one applique project at a time. So weird. For years, when I got bogged down mentally, then I just pushed the project off to the back burner and started stitching on another. Now I'm acting like Sally Steadfast and keeping my nose to the grindstone until it's ALL done. 

Figuring out the centers
Can you see the snow piled up outside on the deck?

It was really exciting to finally figure out the little centers of the primrose flowers. I knew the fabric needed to be a in similar tones of faded black, but the fussy cut flowers in the this black fabric is exactly right. Don't you love when that happens?

Moody 9-Patch in the hoop

Still hand quilting on the Moody 9-Patch quilt. It's only been a finished quilt top since February of 2021, but it seems like it's been in the quilt top drawers for much, much longer. I machine stitched-in-the-ditch between all the blocks before my sewing machine was fixed. Basically, the dual feed wasn't working properly which makes for all those stitching lines being less than fully in-the-ditch and more of a meandering trail of thread. Even with using a standard walking foot. Oh well. Made me a little mad at the time, but now I don't even hardly notice. Or care. Am sort of laughing at myself for expending so much energy doing hand quilting on a quilt that barely shows off the effort involved though. It's been lovely having it in my lap though! Such a pretty, deep fall look and feel going on here!

All the Wilson Siblings in one place and 
lightning didn't strike...

The entire family didn't end up being altogether on the big day after all, only about 45 persons or so. But by Saturday, all of my siblings were present at my mom and dads for 'pizza night'. It's become part of the holiday weekend to have one pizza night, an Asian food night and also a taco bar in the days following Thanksgiving. Anyway, on impulse because its so rare we're all together in one place, we found ourselves taking a few family photos of the siblings. Some smart-alecky person suggested we arrange ourselves in order by birth, and of course people started snapping pics for posterity. It was pretty funny getting it all sorted out and then later on somebody mentioned that half of us pictured here are Gen X kids and the other half are millennials, Whatever that means? 21 years between oldest and youngest in case you were wondering. My baby brother was only four months old at my wedding! lol

I don't really talk about this much because we got a lot of flack about it growing up. People have SO MUCH to say about people having more than four or five kids in their families. I always had to laugh when someone would say my four kids was a big family. Right.... You wouldn't believe all the things total strangers and/or supposed friends would say right in front of us kids or my parents too. And not expect anyone to get offended. It was crazy and really rude at times! You learn really quick who the real friends are! Once in a great while someone would have wonderful things to say to us and we'd all sort of relax and lose the defensive posture. Not that we care now, but as kiddos, it was terribly hard to take at times.

Mom and dad had 12 kids in all with 11 kids raised to adulthood. Let me just say that they were incredible parents to us all and never lived off of anyone or expected anyone else to pick up the slack. Two of my siblings {right smack in the middle and pretty much the bridge between 'older' and 'younger' families} have passed now and this is what is left of the tribe. We still feel their loss every time we do something like this but know it will only get worse as the years fly by. And the numbers undoubtedly shrink even more? Such is life unfortunately so we cherish the good times while we can.

I am the shorty, second to the left in this picture. Fun times and yes, I was bossy growing up. What can I say? As you can see, a few 'what are we doing here?' looks because of the relaxed attire, but who really cares in the long run? I actually think the pictures turned out better from not being overly scheduled and planned to the nth degree! We don't always get along super, magically, wonderfully well, but I know if ever I truly needed anything, I could call any one of them and they'd run to my aid in a heartbeat. You know how it is with well adjusted siblings, blood is thicker than water, but ooh... we also have memories like elephants! I had a great time telling one of my nieces this last weekend about a much younger version of her sweet mama.*wink

Wintertime in Brewster, Washington

In other news, we've had snow and then a little bit more snow on top of that. The first two pictures were snapped by my husband a couple days ago. The first one was taken at his current construction/remodeling project approx. six miles from where we live {which is a whole lot closer to that mountain in the background}. It was such a cold, clear day, the distance looks much, much shorter than what it really is!

 

This next picture was taken just as he was driving through the outskirts of our little town of Pateros {less than half a mile from where we live}, but looking off to the left across the Columbia River instead of straight ahead at Billygoat mountain {seen in the previous picture}.

The sun is shining in Pateros, Washington

This last picture was taken by a friend of ours here in town who owns a little Airbnb. She snapped this picture while taking a walk along the Methow river, right where it dumps into the Columbia river {pictured behind the railroad bridge and also in the background of the previous picture. This is where our little town of Pateros sits, right at the junction of those rivers and nestled in the foothills of the mountain shown in the first picture. We really do have gorgeous views year around here, but in wintertime, after a fresh snowfall and  then the sun comes out? It's just incredible. So pretty.

Love the steamy look to the rivers in the wintertime

And mostly we do love the winters here, but wowsers, it did come early this year! I have shoveled snow off and on in short little spurts for about three days now. Yesterday I slipped and fell splat! on my left shoulder, elbow and hip, thankfully only getting slightly bruised. Normally my husband would do more of the shoveling, but we all got hit by a stomach bug on the Monday after the big weekend and I'm the one who recovered the fastest it seems. I'm just way too impatient to wait around for him to do the work, even though my back and shoulders are crying out the entire time I'm shoveling. I am soooo out of shape! There is a huge difference between a needle and a snow shovel, but I hate having snow fall into my boots every time I head out to the garage, the dumpster or to the car. Ughh. Don't tell them, but I always miss my boys a little extra this time of year...

Quilty Folk Hand Quilting With Perle Cotton Basics--Part #1 An Enthusiast's Guide To Getting Started

This series is for all the people who have commented and/or sent emails through the years asking for a tutorial about hand quilting 'the Quilty Folk way'. In spite of all the general misgivings this has generated, I'm also sort of relieved to get this going. After reading through parts #1-4 and perhaps watching my extremely nonexpert videos, many people will begin to understand why this has always been a very bad idea, indeed. Hey, you get what you ask for. I'm just throwing all my hand quilting quirks out into the wind here and hoping it will help a few quilters along the way.

The first part pertains to what is necessary in getting started. A whole lot of gumption, let me tell you! There is absolutely a learning curve to hand quilting with perle cotton, not going to ignore or downplay that in any way. All totally worthwhile if you have a sincere love for the look though! Very cozy looking, how can you not love that? Obviously there are some other things needed too so let's get to that....

Tools of the trade

Tools & Supplies Needed:

• 17" x 17" Square Plastic Quilting Frame. I use the 'Q-Snap' brand.
• Thread Snips
• Sturdy Leather Thimble. I prefer 'Elaine's' Leather Thimbles
• Sturdy Needle with large eye. I use 'Fon's & Porter's' Utility Quilting Needles
• Perle Cotton Thread--Any brand, #8 or #12
• Quilt, sandwiched and loosely pinned
• *Blue Wash Out Marking Pen. I mostly use Dritz
• **White and Silver colored pencils for marking. I prefer Verithin

Ready for stitching

The first thing you'll want to do is make sure that your quilt is sandwiched and pinned, ready to go. With hand quilting, the quilt doesn't have to be pinned with an extravagant number of pins. Go ahead and zoom in if you like. There's just enough pins to make sure the entire sandwich doesn't shift while moving it around.

A potential placement for the 1st hoop

Place your first hoop in a strategic spot in the middle part of the quilt. No it doesn't have to be dead center. Just make sure that you can move afterward--to an area the size of one frame or so--on every side after that first hoop has been adequately quilted. When you decide where the optimum spot is, remove the outer pins that might get in the way of placing the hoop. Also take out adjacent pins that will be at a stress point when the clamps are positioned onto the hoop. Unlike the picture above {which is for auditioning for the best-spot-in-the-quilt purposes only}, your frame will be underneath the quilt sandwich. Then the clamps will be applied over the top of the quilt and directly over the frame edges.

Once you have determined that the quilt is positioned well in the hoop, and with a proper amount of slack, then take out all of the pins in the center of the hoop. You are now ready to begin stitching.

Quilty Folk hand quilting Part #1--Getting started

The video above is my awkward attempt to show how to get started hand quilting with perle cotton thread using a square plastic hoop. There are many other wonderful tutorials on the web that might expand further on your knowledge. Bear in mind that there is no single method that is perfectly correct or preferable, other than what you find more comfortable and enjoyable, both in concept and outcome.

Quilty Folk hand quilting Part #2--Tying off the thread

I talk a little bit about posture in the first video. Some of you will probably not want to sit with your legs crossed or with your knees up underneath you. Try pulling a low stool up close to your chair, and placing your feet on it, and thereby pushing your knees up. Or even one knee under you and one on the stool. It all helps. However it feels best to hold the hoop in a position to work underneath and over the top of it will work wonders in enjoying your stitching time. Push the quilt hoop into your chest or upper abdomen and use your elbow or arm as support. It's not something you'll want to do all day long, but for an hour or two a day, most of this is doable. 

If, after several sessions of practicing with a square hoop, it never becomes {mostly} comfortable or even satisfactory, please go find a different size or shape of hoop. I want to encourage trying A LOT because these plastic clamps work really well with quilting with the perle cotton style of thread. It is usually quite easy to change the tension of the quilt within the hoop by simply rolling the clamps toward the center of the hoop. This is especially true if the side clamps are not placed onto the quilt using an over zealously stretched placement. Make very sure there are zero wrinkles in the backside of the hoop! If there is, immediately take the clamps off and pull the quilt backing into a better position and replace the clamps before stitching.

Stitching with perle cotton thread means that a larger needle is necessary than what would work well with regular hand quilting thread. There is a larger eye needed after all. Using this longer, quite sturdy needle means it will be extra important to add slack within the hoop in order to easily glide the needle through all of the quilt layers. If the quilt is unnecessarily tight within the hoop, you will instantly notice just how much harder it is to load stitches onto the needle and also, how much less consistent the length of your quilting stitches will be. Getting accustomed to this larger, fairly unwieldy needle is not a lot of fun. After awhile; however, you'll wonder how you could ever competently use the more traditional size of quilting needle!

Quilting with perle cotton thread lends itself very well to 'the human touch' or imperfection. Make your stitches just as long as looks good to you, making sure they are not so long that they become 'toenail catchers'! The important thing is to try and find a consistency in the length throughout. People have asked how far apart the stitches can be or should be? However far apart as looks fine and good to you. And that's really all that matters. Once again, consistency throughout would be the only measure of 'Am I doing this right?' Unless you're striving for a very primitive look. In that case, make the stitches as uneven as possible! Keep in mind that your stitches will change a bit from one stitching session to the next and how tired or energetic you might feel, whether or not you're having a good visit with someone while trying to quilt--that sort of thing. Try to keep more stitches in the hoop than you rip out or you'll never see real progress!

Checking out the stitching on the back of the quilt.

As you learn how to stitch, take a moment here or there to check out the stitching results on the back of your quilt. Be aware of transition areas where the needle might have slipped under the quilt sandwich instead of sliding between the layers. Watch out for lines of stitching where several stitches don't come all the way through. If the thread doesn't catch in the back, then the quilt sandwich isn't going to hold up to use when it's finished.

Sometimes you'll see a very long stitch on the back that makes you wince. If it's way too long, you'll have to fix it. For me, that often happens at the very end when I'm in a hurry, tying the thread off and trying to wrap things up for the night. If you haven't tied off your thread, go ahead and rip out the stitches back to that long, ugly stitch, and then, start over. If you have already tied off the thread and moved on {poor you}, you'll probably have to cut off the thread somewhere a ways out from the mistake--try to leave a length of thread to easily tie off somewhere convenient. Then, load a new length of thread and re-stitch that problem area once again. It's actually almost impossible to fix these sorts of mistakes solely using the initial thread used. 

I still make a regular practice of turning the entire quilt over to check for stitching 'oops'--usually at the end of a evenings quilting session. I lay the quilt on the floor {while the hoop is still attached} and look at the overall stitching on the front. Then I turn it over and survey the back. Stitching good? Check! No wrinkles? Check!

For most people, it will take a very long time and lots of practice before the back of the quilt looks nearly as good as the front. That's just a fact, so don't be discouraged! Be gentle with yourself and enjoy how the stitches look on the front of the quilt. Try using multi-colored, quilt backing fabrics that hide a multitude of sins if you're going to be picky about uneven stitches in the back. It really does help camouflage things! Be watchful when stitching close to the sides of the quilt hoop. That seems to be a great place for extra-long stitches on the back of the quilt to magically appear. Everything about this improves with practice and you'll be amazed at how the awkwardness eventually eases up. No matter what, be happy and quilt more!

Part #2 Moving the Hoop should be ready by tomorrow!