HAND QUILTING

I love to hand quilt......even though this technique seems to be out of vogue with most quilters these days, I still enjoy the look and the process. So, I volunteered to hand quilt a panel for the new upcoming Alzheimer's Exhibit. To learn more, click here.

The panel is 6" wide x 7 feet long, consisting of 55 signature patches. Though many quilters aren't comfortable stitching in a hoop/frame.....I'm a firm believer that this is the very best way to achieve uniform stitches and to avoid distortion.

Here's my method of securing smaller work in a frame (I use a 11" x 17" Q-Snap frame)....this is a great trick you can use to quilt the final border of a quilt!

First, make a muslin 'casing' with a 2"-3" long extension.

The casing or sleeve needs to be large enough to slip over the PVC frame.

For this project, I've got two casings.....one on each lengthwise side. The narrow panel was pinned to each of the muslin extenders and the PVC clips secured as usual. The short sides of the PVC frame utilizes the clips in the usual manner. (Refer to top photo for a full view)

In this view of the wrong side of the quilt sandwich (white threads are the basting) ......you can see the muslin pinned on either side of the quilt.

Here's a detail of the hand quilting from the wrong side. I was a bit concerned the quilting would be difficult because the backing is batik, but since the batting is a thin poly, I'm not having any trouble. However, my fingers are a tad sore as it's been awhile since I've hand quilted. I pondered for quite awhile over what quilt motif to use and finally settled on overlapping circles.....since we are all in this quest to raise money for Alzheimer's Research together!