Ever since I moved to the JJ size 10 betweens for handquilting, I’ve been struggling with the silliest thing: traveling. It finally dawned on me this morning to simply take the small needle off and put a larger one on to travel the larger distance needed. I know, I know, I was looking at the obvious, you don’t need to tell me, but I felt rather foolish when the notion struck. A good trick when minus an inch. So it seems a basting needle is useful for more than one thing after all. Duh!

"Steve was injured one day when a thought struck him." :roll:

I push my needle as far as I can take it, but instead of pulling all the way out, I leave the eye end inside and, holding on to the point, rotate the needle arround and poke the eye end out as far as I can or need to. I can do this as many times as I need to to get as far as I want to go. Works best if the eye end is out of the batting but not through the top layer yet. That's faster for me than trying to thread a needle!

Steve was injured one day when a thought struck him or stuck him! :lol:

Oh yeah, Steve do you want the patterns?

I'm still unsure what patterns? Did you post pictures?

no, but I will when I get my camera back from my brother. One is a withch on a sweat shirt with a hat like winter. It was in the sale pictures. It is an applique pattern. Cute. It depends on if you like applique or not.

Steve, i dont understand, because ive only hand quilted a bit, but want to know more. Why do you need to travel the needle so far? Why dont you just pull it through after a few stitches, then do a few more, pull it through?

and Lucky Patsy's Mom, i get the idea that you try and leave some fabric on the needle at all times? Why is this?

It's not so far as all that, just a tad farther than the needle will reach when working with a small needle. The pattern is actually tiny, but there are spots on the quilting where I need to travel or start and stop over and over. Not that I hate tying knots, but only within reason.

I've actually finished the piece, and will post as soon as it's cleaned and I get a snapshot of it.

I don't leave material on the needle at all times, only when I am trying to avoid tying off a knot and starting up new elsewhere. I am basically shimmying my needle through the middle of the quilt sandwich to come up in a different area. Am I making any sense? When I am taking the actual quilting stitches I do about 3 or 4 and then pull the whole thing through.