Hand Quilting

I just started hand quilting the Fall Quilt. Oh boy, what am I getting myself into

Figuring that I’d be in for a long project, I decided to use a simple quilting pattern. Nothing fancy and straight from the book I took the pattern from, Material Obsession. However, what I did not anticipate was just how difficult it would be to quilt a large, full-sized, uh, quilt. This is so confusing to me. It’s like QUILT in the quilting world is like SMURF in the Smurf world; you just use it in place of any other word, or for when there is no other word to describe what you are trying to convey. Quiltity quilt quilt quilt!

Anyway, so, I’m using a cotton thread because the perle cotton I wanted to use I couldn’t find a color that would go with the quilt very well. Instead of single stranding it, I doubled it up. I don’t know why, but this is something I’ve done forever and continue to do when hand-appliquéing as well. Perhaps it is because if I’m going to be obvious about my stitching, I want it to be really obvious. Or perhaps it is simply a habit I never grew out of. Either way, I’m quilting with two strands of thread which, honestly, is a pain in the ass when it bunches up which inevitably it does… often.

At this point I’m thinking of ripping it all out and starting over, which if I did it now would save me a lot of heartache if I decided to do this later, especially since I’m only about a quarter of the way through my first pattern. Okay, I have to be honest, the pattern is an eight and a half inch square with a six and a half inch square inside which will be repeated all over the quilt in random places and usually overlapping. It’s quite modern, but then again, so is the fabric and pattern itself. I debated for a while over whether to do circles instead of squares to mimic the circles in the fabric, but in the end decided to keep them squares for ease of quilting. Now, if only I could make sure that when I’m quilting I’m actually going through the backside and not just the front.