I also love Grammy Dwynn's quilt and I'm going to give this big stitches a try thanks for the very nice Tutorials
on this

I love your post. You write so eloquently! I agree with you -- do what your hands tell you to! Big hugs!

Laura

Go to: mountainpatchwork.com...they call it a Promise stitch!

Perhaps this big stitich quilting is what I do. I have tried and tried to use the smaller needle with the thimble and the 'rocking' technique but just can not get the hang of it. So I did what some of you said and just do my own thing. A friend sent me this king size all hand-pieced GFG quilt so I hated to have it machine quilted after all her work. I am s-l-ow-ly hand quilting it. I wanted to stay approx 1/4 inch from seam lines which puts my needle in the double thickness of the fabric so another reason why it was hard to do the rocking thing. Plus, I thought it would be a stronger stitch if sewn in the double thickness. (I digress) Here are pictures of what mine looks like. Is this what you call big-stitich quilting? I am about 5 months away from finishing. I do plan to sew the binding on with machine though for the one side and hand stitch the back.

I call this the primitive stitch, yes, big stitches. I've used perle cotton and been very happy with the results.

The Japanese sometimes do large-stitch quilting, called Sashiko. There's a lot about it on the internet. Interesting and pretty.

I LOVE the look of this... but haven't tried one yet. I'm loving the speed of machine quilting but will use this technique for something special.

The Amish and Mennonites call the "Praire Stitich". Most of the time it is in a dark color and the stitches are very uniform.

Here is the source I learned from. Billie Lauder

http://shop.easymade.com/Quilting-in...2417-00110.htm

When my husband's grandma died (33 years ago) I inherited her beginnings of a Maple Leaf quilt. All the blocks were hand sewn, some joined to each other, some single. My first job was to join them together as she had planned, luckily she had a graph paper where she drew her plan.
I sewed them together, by machine, bought some fabric for the border, and felt that it deserved hand quilting. Not being much of a hand quilter, I used the 'big stitch' going around each leaf in a color of perle cotton that matched the leaf's color.
I don't think she would be too disappointed, but glad someone finished it, 30 years later, instead of throwing it away. It will not be used, but passed on, with the story and graph paper to my children