Originally Posted by Lobster

I hand-sew everything, I still can't use a machine. One of these days I'll learn, but meanwhile I can't afford lessons and I am madly in love with hand-sewing anyway.

I piece sitting at my sewing desk, and usually quilt sitting up in bed, though sometimes on the sofa. Like many people, I started out vastly preferring piecing to quilting. I decided to make an effort to learn to like quilting, as I didn't want to neglect half the craft. Just doing it more helped, and then I discovered Welsh quilting and found something that really speaks to me. I'm now genuinely as happy to quilt as to piece, and am starting to work on the quilting motifs much earlier in the design process.

I use #11 sharps for piecing, #11 big eye betweens for standard quilting, and #9 betweens for quilting with thicker thread. I started off with the usual quilting threads, and have got my stitches down to a reasonable size, but rather missed being able to see the stitching clearly. I'm quilting my current quilt with #8 perle, and I'm delighted with how it looks as well as the fact that it's quicker to do. It's more awkward in a few ways, though, burying the knot can be a nightmare for instance, particularly when I'm quilting over more densely-woven fabric such as a batik.