Originally Posted by cilliebug
I have to ask, since you only hand quilt, and you do beautiful work by the way, how many stitches per inch to you get? I've read that old time quilts, some people got as many as 22 stitches per inch. Me, well, I'm lucky if I get 8. Any tricks of the trade to share so I can get more per inch? Just curious and wish I did as beautiful quilting as you do.
The number of stitches I do depends a lot of the material I work with. In general I do 12-14 stitches, sometimes 16 - only counted on the top of the quilt. Some people count the stitches and the gaps between them - so do you know which way they counted?
When I started hand quilting I tried to do the rocking stitch with loading the needle full of stitches, the more the better. My stitches wasn't as fine and even as I want them, so I changed my method and did only one stitch at time. The result was much better and that is the way I still quilt today.
I think it is a matter of practice. For me eveness is important and top on the list, tiny stitches are secondary. Quilting is like hand writing, every hand is different, the way you quilt or write is different and how it looks like also. You can try to change the tension of the quilt in your hoop (if you use one), change the size of the needle and use a shorter one - but maybe 8 stitches per inches is the way you quilt!