Hand Quilting

Back when I first started quilting (approximately 1975), it was all hand quilting - machine quilting had not become the force it is now. How the finger beneath the quilt hurt! It was hard to get a callous thick enough to protect against the sharp little needle attacking that finger. I did learn to use a thimble on my quilting hand. One day, I tried putting a thimble on my underneath finger. After some clumsy tries, I finally got the hang of it and wow my troubles were gone. I was able to "feel" the needle against the thimble and return it to the top of the quilt. It actually helped me to become quite a good hand quilter. My stitches were small and evenly spaced.

However, I no longer hand quilt and probably could not quilt as well as I used to. I do have a lot of quilts that were done in the hoop. I will say this, I think machine quilting is just as beautiful as hand quilting and actually harder to master. There is a place for it all. I have been machine quilting smaller pieces - will never be able to do a large quilt on my machine - and in the past year or so have finally become to feel more comfortable and a little more confident of my quilting. If I do a large quilt, I will have one of the girls with a long arm quilter quilt for me. (Click to enlarge)