grammypatty7

I love hand quilting and people are amazingly complimentary about my stitches and I mean members of my quilting chapter and our guild officers when they visit - it has amazed me as until joining a chapter here 2 years ago, I've not had the opportunity to be around other quilters and am totally self taught. I don't use a hoop or frame but have tried using both and couldn't tolerate them. As a result, I pin baste heavily and then hand baste 3 inches apart top to bottom and side to side - very heavily basted. I prefer hand quilting as it gives a puffy look to my quilts and my batting of choice is the low loft polyester sold in a bag at JoAnn Fabrics. The members of my quilt chapter tried hard to convert me to 100% cotton until one guild meeting we had a well known presenter who hand quilts as much as she machine quilts and her batting of choice for hand quilting is polyester as well and to give the quilt dimension and puff. Never heard of such a thing myself, just a personal choice for me so hearing it put me on cloud 9. The does use warm and natural for all of her machine quilting projects and she does all of her machine quilting on a home sewing machine - no long arm for her. Too bad I can't remember her name because many of you would recognize her name.

I can't use a thimble. LOL. Found myself with my thimbled finger constantly sticking up out of the way and of totally no benefit or use. When my fingers get sore I use bag balm to treat them and will put masking tape or a bandaid in the tender area and it does the trick until the callous forms again. I have tried all kinds of thimbles so far without success and a hand quilter looks totally stupid sitting there happily quilting away with a wayward finger.

I do quilt as you go using a variation of the Marti Michell "Machine Quilting in Sections Book." She was written up several times in Woman's Day Magazine years ago and that's when I realized that yes, I can do this quilting thing if I use her technique. Over the years, my "Patty Style" has evolved and i work in panels. I recently bought her book because several friends in my quilt chapter want to learn how to do it but on their sewing machines and my specific modification will NOT work with machine as it would put too much fabric back on the machine. She has several approaches to quilt as you go in panels so something should work for most and yes, I do have seams on the back. My quilts done this way over 20 years ago, those seams have held up beautifully. The little mending I've had to do on my daughter's quilts was not to those seams but to areas of fabric that have worn thin or been torn.