i used perle cotton and my problems were 2:

1. the needles were a pain in the butt. to get an eye big enough, i had to go with a longer needle. since i finished that project, i have been altered to the availability of shorter, sharp needles (you need sharp points for quilting) but i wasn't able to find them locally at the time. that would have helped significantly. hand quilting with a longer needle is not ideal.

2. my "body memory" or whatever kicked in and it was difficult for me to maintain a larger stitch length. this is a practice issue (as in - practice would have helped a lot!) but the end result was my perle cotton quilting was pretty close to my thread hand quilting. this meant it wasn't any faster, and given the needle thing probably about as long in time as regular ole' handquilting.

it did however really stand out, where often handquilting fades a bit (which is disappointing sometimes for the hours spent you know?)

i will do it again. for sure. but with the above lessons in mind :)

aileen

Thank you so much for posting. I'm planning on doing some branches and leaves in big stitch on my next quilt to make it more artsy and this gives me a good idea how much I can expect contrasting stitches to stand out. There's a good amount of space between your motifs too! What batting did you use?

I have used "big stitch" quilting a number of times with great results. I always use pearl cotton

There is a very good Youtube video on big stitch quilting. She uses #12 perle cotton and a #20 or 22 chenille needle. It has a large eye but is shorter. I have also heard that embroidery floss or #10 crochet cotton can be used. I'm looking forward to trying it myself.

Love this conversation. I think I am going to have to give this a try on my next kid's quilt. I really like the look of the quilt posted by Emmaj above. Such a unique idea carried from one context to another.

emma your quilt is very pretty great stitching shows beautiful on front and back

I have done a few quilts this way. I used #10 crochet thread or embroidery floss. both work well. just take diffient tools. sharped pointed yarn needles, Bees waxs for the thread, sometimes a needle threader can be helpful.

I do hand quilt & like big stitching. I'm going to hand quilt a civil war quilt & I'm going to do big stitch with perle thread

I'm wondering if I can use embroidery thread in a contrasting color.

~ Cindy

Check out this web site: http://www.JoQuilter.com
She specializes in Big Stitch quilting. Our guild had her come and do a presentation and a workshop of the big stitch. She uses #12 thread and #5 between needles. She has a large variety of colors of thread. I took a small group of friends to her shop and she is more than willing to give a demonstration on the technique. She always has an ongoing project to work on and several examples of her work. If you live in the area of Bellevue, IA, you should stop in for a visit.