Not too long ago, I had a fellow blogger ask if I had a blog post about how I go about my hand quilting process. It took me by surprise because I had never thought about it...it is something I guess, that I take for granted.
It was
Stacey who asked me about it, and I agreed to do just that, one of these days. So, I thought...why not now during Blogathon Canada????
This afternoon I decided to put one of my own quilts in to hand quilt so....here is my process.
In this first pic I am showing you a homemade version of quilting frames.
They are rough looking, but work like a charm!
That groove you see here on the left is where my quilting bars rest. I have 4 sets of bars ...from crib to king size. All I need to do is move the 2 ends farther apart to fit the larger ones in.
This is how I stitch the back of my quilt in to the frames...wrong side facing up...ok?
Now the other side stitched in, and next I roll the backing around one of these bars. I work at about 3 feet of the quilt at a time.
Here it is...the side I start quilting at with the ends all tied in.
The side that is rolled....see the little lever thingy there on the right corner of the picture?? That fits against the wooden cog to keep the quilt tight. It's on the far left in the above picture too.
See...all nice and tight....
Now I stretch the quilt batt over that tight area, and the excess falls down behind the quilt.
Here you see the quilt top....stretched out the same as the batt. It falls down over the back area with the quilt batt. as I progress with the quilting I will roll in one side and roll out the other.
Next step is to pin baste the quilt top to the other 2 layers.
Now...this is the pattern that I am quilting on this quilt...
This is my favorite type of thimble and hand quilting needles.
As I finish this row across the quilt as far as I can reach, then I will roll this side under the quilt bar..and roll the opposite side out. Continuing in this manner through the whole quilt.
I will post more pics as it moves along. I hope you weren't too bored with my explanation.lol.
Make sure you visit our fellow Canadian bloggers this week...there will also be giveaways.
