A new skill?

So I decided to try hand quilting. I really need some handwork to do when I'm away from my machine and thought hand quilting would be great. What the heck. I can sew a running stitch, right? Not so easy as it looks. I fumbled and fumed and threw away my first attempt. Here's what I just finished. Not to bad from a birds eye view, but don't get too close.

Now I know I can fill all those blank spaces with some curves that I was afraid to quilt on the machine. I had a terrible time getting my first stitch to be the same size as the rest of the stitches on the needle. I tried everything but that first stitch is tough for me. I tried in the hoop and out of the hoop, I tried different needles and putting the thimble on different fingers. Nothing worked. So I guess it's practice, practice, practice for me.

Any suggestions for a newby hand quilter?

Pardon the picture quality. I took them with my iPhone. I also sent this post from my email account. But I had to edit the post to get the pictures to not be at the top of the post. I still can't figure out how to avoid having to move the pictures everytime I post.

This weekend I made a lot of progress on my projects.

First, I put together my Orange Crush top. I decided on the borders too. The inner border will be the light purple and the outer border will be the dark purple from the stars. I have to see if I can find more of the fabric, otherwise, the inner border will be 1.5" and the outer border will be 3". That's about all I can squeeze out of the fabric that's left over.



Next, I finished the Sassy Sixteen baby quilt I've been working on for my friend's new granddaughter. Parker was born on July 3 so that's not bad. It's only 11 days late. The quilt is actually for my friend to use in the crib at her house.



The first pic shows how I quilted it. I used the serpentine stitch on my machine to do a diagonal grid with wavy lines. It really turned out nice, IMHO.

Lastly, I finished 7 more blocks for the Quilts Your Way Squishie Swap. That's 12 out of 20 that are due the end of August so I'm ahead of the game at this point. You can see pics of all 12 in my gallery.

In addition, I started working up my granddaughter's birthday quilt. I cut all the pieces for another Sassy Sixteen in princess fabrics. She is a little princess who will be seven in September. I also started playing with making some Diamond in a Square string blocks to use up some of the huge amount of strings I've accumulated over the past couple of years.

Pretty productive weekend for quilting at my house. But then with my grandkids in Louisiana until the end of the month, I don't have a lot of distractions at the moment. My weekends will start getting busy again very soon. So I'm savoring all my quilting time right now.

Have a great week!

Happy Fourth!

Happy Fourth of July everyone! Thought this would be an appropriate day to post a picture of the little table runner I made three years ago. This went together in just a little over a day. I got the idea from a magazine that used this pattern in a larger wall hanging size quilt.

Since we are not going out until much later this afternoon for a bbq, I get to spend the day sewing. I promised myself I would work on the Squishie blocks from the Quilts Your Way Squishie Swap this weekend. I've got about 20 blocks to make from the F8 cuts everyone sent to me. The finished blocks have to be mailed out by the end of August and I just know I'll be in trouble if I don't get most of them done this weekend. I'll post pics as I progress through the weekend.

To make it more interesting, I've made a deal with myself. As each block is completed, I get to work on my Orange Crush for a bit before starting the next block. That way I get a bunch of things done.

Have a great long weekend everyone!