(Please note that affiliate links have been used in this post.)
(This quilt is for sale in my Etsy Shop.)
It’s only a baby quilt, but this is the first quilt I’ve entirely hand quilted, and it’s finished! (This one is a close second to being all finished!)
This quilt started because Elizabeth from Quilter’s Candy asked if I’d test her new pattern. It’s been a stretching and fulfilling quilt for me. I’ve never sewn a quilt with all solid fabrics. There are not patterns on the fabrics, and if you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know I love a good scrappy quilt. Those are my favorites.
This was good for me, though. I learned a lot about color and design.
Like I mentioned, this is also the first quilt I’ve entirely hand quilted. I used size 8 white cotton Pearl thread, and I used Fons and Porter Utility needles for hand quilting. In all honesty, I’ve never tried another needle so I really don’t know how they compare to other hand quilting or embroidery needles.
As many of you know, I’ve learned to thoroughly enjoy the slowness and meticulousness of hand quilting. It definitely slows down the finish rate of projects, but I’m more than okay with that right now.
Colors? I picked all these colors out using swatches on my computer screen. They did not disappoint! I’ve never sewn with the Art Gallery Fabrics Pure Elements line, and I must say, they are a beautiful line of fabrics. Art Gallery makes a very smooth, borderline silky, feel to their fabrics. The colors are beautiful.
Here are the colors I used in this quilt:
You can see all of their solid colors
HERE.
I backed the quilt in mint green with a bit of navy blue added for interest. The hand quilting on the back is one of my favorite parts of this quilt. You know how every single persons hand writing is different? It’s kind of like that with hand quilting. No one can hand quilt the same way you do. Everyone’s stitch will look just a bit different.
It gives the quilt such an feel of individuality. No one can duplicate it. Know what I mean?
After I finished up this quilt, I took a few of the leftover scraps and sewed up a log cabin pillow.
Once again this pillow is entirely hand quilted. I marked the lines a quarter inch apart with my
hera marker to keep the lines as straight as possible. I’m so happy with how it turned out. You can see it is not symmetrical and the width of the fabrics are all very different. I love that about this pillow.
I learned the hard way this time, though, that using too much basting spray can really gum up the fabric. I used the same spray as I’ve used for other projects, but I must have sprayed it on too heavy this time. Hand quilting this pillow was an awful chore! I really could only do one maybe two stitches at one time because it was so hard to push and pull the needle through.
I’m so thankful this happened on a small project and not a large one.
One more thought about the basting spray, though. When I sew these pillow covers, the front cover is three full layers of fabric…just like a quilt. Since no one sees the inside of the pillow, I always use scrap fabric for the backing of the front panel. I used some scraps from a previous pillow backing. I believe that backing had some overspray from the previous project. When I ironed the backing for this project, I could tell it got really sticky and gummed up on my iron. MAYBE the ironed overspray was what really made it difficult for quilting. Either way. Lesson learned. DO NOT iron fabric with basting spray on it. And be careful not to use too much basting spray for my projects.
I finished this pillow cover with my favorite
brass zippers from Zipit on Etsy. Excellent and fast customer service, by the way.
What have I learned through this whole project from start to finish…the quilt and the pillow? I never would have sewn either of these projects with all solid fabrics had it not been for someone asking me to try it out.
I’m glad I did them. After dragging my feet a bit to pick out fabric, the project turned into a load of fun. There were plenty of unknowns, but I learned along the way, and I know more for next time.
Related
