Hoop It Up!

I love Bonnie Hunter. I so enjoy her blog Quiltville's Quips and Snips and the real and creative life she leads. It inspires me. She has been doing some hand quilting and showing it lately. Even though her business also involves a lot of long arm work, she still likes that cozy, slow stitch feeling too. It made me want to go back to my quilting roots.

Around 2010 I found the modern quilting movement on line. I learned how to machine quilt and I was hooked. It was so much faster, and the possibilities were endless. I pretty much gave up hand quilting. These days though, I find myself drawn back into the slower pace of hand work. I have been doing tons of embroidery and crochet. Now, I wanted to start hand quilting again. But not on a large quilt.

I am quilting along with Rachel at Stitched in Color on the Pas de Deux quilt this year. She showed a photo of some fabrics she had pulled for a project that included this Heather Ross print of the moths. I love that print and happened to have a little. I wanted to use it. So I chose several fabrics to go with it, wanting a spring colored vibe. I edited the colors and then pulled out my Tula Pink's 100 Modern Quilt Blocks, looking for ideas. I wanted that soft purple to be  focus of the piece, so I made 5 blocks identical. The other block I wanted to feature the supporting fabrics. But I didn't like this. Too much too much.

So I chose my favorite and settled on this. I added the green back in as a very narrow 1 inch border, and had just enough of the purple to make an outer border, which is wider at the top and bottom than the sides. I am very pleased with this.

Then pieced together a backing from some long held fabrics that weren't getting any use. I pulled out my old quilting hoop and hooped it up, after thread basting the layers. I had to kind of relearn that thread basting too. It's amazing what you forget.

And now, for however long it takes, I am going to hand quilt this piece. It is 24x27 inches, so not too big.

I am going to let it lead me, and show me how it wants to be quilted. I took the first few stitches yesterday, and let me tell you, my hand quilting needs work. But, the only way it gets better is to do it. Practice, practice, practice. So that's what I will be doing for awhile. And I couldn't be happier about it.

Talk to you soon.