hand quilting.
 

seriously. i have been doing this for years. when will i get faster?

it is truly the slowest thing ev-AR.

aileen

It's not about speed - think of it as a chance to meditate and re-charge those batteries:). Hand quilting is the best indoor relaxation activity - and you have something beautiful to show for it.

my gran is 89. i know...but it had to be by hand. but....

just frustrated after having put it down over the summer i guess.

just seems kind of endless...

(this is a late night whine brought to you by relentless self-recrimination.)

aileen

As a person who is also a relentless self-recriminator I understand completely. When will we learn to ease up on ourselves!:) :)

You will get there, just keep chugging on. In the end you will be rewarded with a beautiful hand quilted quilt!

just enjoy the process, it is not meant to be fast. If you were doing embroidery or needlepoint you would not expect to be zipping along.

When I was hand quilting for others, more or less full time (6-8 hours a day) I can tell you, you are prone to repetitive motion injuries if you try to overdo it.

I love to hand quilt and sew in the evenings.i feel that with the sewing machine in the day I am rushing to finish, can I get off the rat race. In the evening not being lazy just slowly meditating and hand sewing. I know when to stop I can't thread the needle.
Keep hand sewing it will rewRd you in the end and you will be charged for a new day.

I once had a twin quilt up on a floor frame so long I forgot what I had quilted on the bottom border. :D I stick to smaller hand quilting projects now because I am so slow.

I'm slow as well. It takes me 3-4 months to do a quilt on my quilting frame.... and that's stitching on it a little every day. But I love to see the completed project.... really love the look of hand quilting. So, I don't hand quilt everything.... it takes too long. I do FMQ as well for the ones that aren't as 'special' to me. Right now I have a quilt on the frame that's been there over a year..... I'm gone every summer to our cabin and can't hand quilt and last winter I broke my arm. So, we just got back to our winter place and I uncovered the quilt to work on it. I've been here since Saturday night and haven't had a chance to stitch.... my 93 year old mom was in the hospital and I had to be by her side for 2 days. This quilt is taking a long time to finish.

Took me a year to quilt a double -- shadow quilted around all the needleturn applique first and then the background - did get a bit tiresome sometimes so then I would do something small, but such pleasure when I put in that last stitch - I hand quilt everything stops me falling asleep on the couch in the evenings ha ha

Just finished hand-quilting a whole cloth quilt. Took me almost a year. You know what? I didn't mind that it took so long, in fact it was kind of sad when I realized it was finished. Enjoyed every stitch....

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Doesn't matter how fast you go. If you do it right the first time and don't have to go back. Maybe you should look at some of the videos on YouTube. Alex Andersen has a video of a guest who handquilts and has a lot of tips and tricks. Just a thought. I ordered an Aunt Becky to help guide under one of mine. Not sure about ordering the one thimble that costs abut $60 though. Would have to insure it. Which on a short note. We have our renter's insurance cover my sewing machine and I keep receipts for material.

That is gorgeous!

Thanks Tessagin. :)
This was also my first time to do prairie points... won't be my last.

I can't think of "fast" and "hand quilting" in the same sentence. I've progressed from glacial speed to extremely slow, and that might be it for me. One idea I read was to start with a length of thread a yard long and pull it in half way to quilt a line. That leaves the other 18 inches hanging that you thread on your needle and quilt the another way. That saves the time it takes to make and bury beginning knots.

I think hand quilting is awesome and wish I had the patience required to do hand work. You will have a master piece when your quilt is finished.

I hand quilt and love every minute of it. I put my quilts in the large old fashion frame to begin with and baste each block separate. Then I take it out of the frame and quilt it in a 14 inch hoop in my lap. I enjoy this process, it is therapy, don't think about the time it takes, enjoy every minute and think of the heirlooms that you make. Just enjoy and keep this tradition alive. To me machine quilting is work, hand quilting is a pleasure.

My answer for this tendency is to pretend that you are supporting your best friend as she works thru the handquilting on a project...we all treat our best friends with more patience and support than we treat ourselves.

I too love to hand quilt. Something about setting in my rocking chair at the end of a long day teaching, sipping on a hot cup of tea, TV in the background, and my quilt in a hoop on my lap warming me up, is just plain blissful. I've learned to stab stitch using both hands and it goes relatively quick for me. I can do about 12 inches of stitching in about 18 minutes, so I know how much to draw on the quilt to finish in an evening. It doesn't bother me that it takes a while to hand quilt because that is why I'm hand quilting it - I want to relax and slow down. The lap quilt I'm hand quilting right now is about half done and I started working on it in September.

I have to agree with so many of the others.. I really enjoy hand quilting. On the couch with the TV on. There is something about watching football and quilting... I can't watch football without sewing :D That being said, if I have a project that has a time frame, I won't hand quilt. It just stresses me out. So I use my machine on some and hand quilt those that I have time to do so. I find it relaxing

It is hand work, so you will never really get fast at it. Part of the joy of hand quilting is enjoying the process. I don't do it often, but when I do, love to listen to relaxing music. Can really get into the rhythm of the stitches.

that's ok, you bring whine, I'll supply the cheese! :D

oh my gourd, I heard that de sequis fella in there! :p
You are so right about music though. I'd love to find time to do more embroidery, (too skeered to hand quilt big projects...fibro and all that stiff stuff), but what a joy it is to just sit with a piece, some thread and a needle...hot-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha!!!! :D