What I'm working on...

I decided to hand quilt this. I made a small quilt (baby sized) with the two 12" blocks surrounded by A LOT of white. I wasn't sure what to do with it as far as the quilting goes, but then decided to hand quilt it. I'm pretty excited and I'm loving it so far. It was originally going to be a gift for someone having a baby girl, but I love this so much and with all the hand quilting and time,  I'm not sure I want to give it away for fear it won't be appreciated! So this may end up hanging on a wall in my house.

I finished my hst quilt top, but have not quilted it yet. That will be on hold for a couple weeks. I'm heading to my mom's in IL next week and I haven't been there in two years, so I'm rather excited! My sister is also going for part of the time. It should be lots of fun! 

 

I won't be blogging on my end the rest of this week and all of next week. But I'll be reading all of yours while I'm gone. I plan on bringing this quilt with and hopefully finishing it, but we'll see! 

THREAD!!!

YAY! my thread arrived today! So I've decided I'm going to hand quilt my Modify Tradition quilt top. Because there are so many different colors in the quilt I had no idea which Perle cotton threads I wanted. So...I ordered them all!  I found a great deal on Perle cotton thread at ThreadArt.com. They even have this great set of all the colors 50% off. So I just had to get it, right? Looking at all the spools, I just know this is going to be PERFECT for my quilt! Over the weekend I also ordered my quilting frame from Joann's. (well, I ordered 2: a 17"x17" and an 8"x8") Joann's had the best price I could find and I was able to use a 40% off coupon on the larger frame and the other one was already on sale 40% off (which i think is over now) So anyway, once I get my frame I'll be getting started on this project. I'm rather excited!

Hand Quilting

Have you ever done it? I just got this book from my mom. It's a gorgeous book and has some great quilts in it. Just about every single one of them is hand quilted. I'm finding myself drawn to it! It looks so good! The book has tips on thread to use etc. I've heard people say it takes so long.

I'm wondering if I should give hand quilting a try. My favorite part of the whole quilting process is sitting on the couch and hand sewing the binding to the back of the quilt. I'm one of those people that like to sit and do stuff w/ my hands. I like to knit and crochet for the same reason. I love the TV. I'm pretty much addicted to it. So I find that if I'm knitting, crocheting or doing the binding while watching the TV, it's not so bad that I sit in front of it for hours!

It seems that most of my quilts are always gifts for people so I'm always rushed to get them done by a deadline. But I'm thinking that maybe one day I'll actually make a quilt for myself and possibly hand quilt it.I love the look of them. I did try browsing around Flickr to find some great photos of some hand quilting that I like but wasn't too successful at finding anything to post. At one point I saw someone's blog that had an absolutely gorgeous hand quilted quilt that they did; and now I can't find it! I think I saw it on a blog during the Sew Mama Sews May give-away month. I should have saved the link b/c it was amazing!

What are your thoughts on hand quilting?