I’ve been making pin cushions of my finger tips this weekend doing some hand quilting. The tip of the index finger of my left hand looks like raw meat 
I’m not a very accomplished hand quilter and I can’t say that I really enjoy it. I always seem to get into a fight with the quilting hoop for a start. I had a go without the hoop but it didn’t really improve matters, although I’ve read on some blogs about people who don’t use hoops or frames.
Here’s what I’ve been doing. The object of the exercise was to try various threads and colours to see the different effects you can get. The quilt top was from the exercise on transparency in module 2 of the course.
I made the mistake of using the all cotton batting that I usually use on my quilts that will be machine quilted. It is great for machine quilting because it kind of sticks to the top and backing and makes it less likely to get wrinkles sewn in, but it is compact and hard work for hand quilting. On my first attempt at hand quilting in a QU class of Hawaiian appliqué and hand quilting we used high loft polyester batting and it was much easier to quilt.
This image shows the quilting in a little more detail. I was trying out various thicknesses of thread. The blue thread going across the quilt is the variegated Valdani thread. Although others rave about this thread I find it quite variable in thickness as well as colour. It tends to beard more too.
In this red corner I tried out (bottom to top) ordinary red cotton sewing thread, one strand of stranded embroidery thread, gold thread, 2 strands of embroidery thread, more gold thread and then some different thicknesses of cotton sewing thread.
I liked the effect of the double stranded embroidery thread and it wasn’t any harder to quilt with than sewing thread.
I need to give my fingers a chance to recover and then I have one more activity to go and I’ve finished module 3 of the course. My goal is to complet module 3 by the end of May.
