Hello Ladies, I am a newbie hoping for advice. I have been assembling a paper peiced hexagon lap quilt. It is a "scrappy" quilt, using fabric gifted by freinds and leftovers from other projects. It is about 1 metre square. I have taken all the papers out, leaving just the outer row all the way round. I have some batting and backing cotton fabric and I know I have to make a sandwich and baste it. I would like to hand quilt the peice, but as the hexagons are only 5 cm wide, I can't see myself having the patience to quilt each one individually. Can anyone recommend a quilting pattern that I can use?

Maybe a diagonal crosshatch pattern across the entire quilt?

I have one that I will eventually quilt ¼" inside the seams on. Just did a webshots search and came up with lots for you to look through.
http://www.webshots.com/search?query...e=chromeheader

Maybe see something in there that will help?

Welcome to the forum. Pretty quilt top!

Sorry I can't help you on this one, I machine quilt.

No suggestions, but what a wonderful quilt top.

Sadly there is usually no such thing as a quick pattern for hand quilting, or at least I haven't discovered one. Usually the easiest are simple straight lines or a grid pattern. One of the best pieces of information ever given to me when I first began quilting was this, a friend and mentor told me that quilting (esp. hand quilting) usually takes the same amount of time as creating the quilt top. That was a real eye opener for me because I thought once the top was done I would be mainly finished and the rest would just whip up (quilt up) in short order. Ha ha hahahahahah. I have since learned how wrong I was. If you don't want to spend a lot of time hand quilting, you could machine quilt it. You can quilt it in the ditch, which will hide the machine quilting and allow others to focus on the amazing quilt you've created. It is quite stunning and you've done an amazing job for someone who says they are a newbie!
Piece ~ Tiffany

PS. If you don't like the way it quilts up, just send it to me and I'll take good care of it for you! :lol:

This quilt is so beautifully hand-pieced with special fabrics, I would probably take the time to hand quilt it 1/4-inch inside each piece. It would take some time, but I'd just work on it in front of the tv every night with a goal of finishing 4 threaded needles a night. You don't have to stop and start inside each hexagon; you can run the needle between layers to move from one hexagon to the next.

I would not want to hand quilt it in any other way because of all the seams a grid or cross-hatch pattern would encounter. For me, it's rather easy to quilt through 3 layers but an absolute bear to quilt through seams. If you have pressed all the seams open, hand quilting through seams wouldn't be as hard, but still wouldn't be as easy as just 3 layers.

If hand quilting, I would be ***very*** careful to choose a batting that is easy to hand quilt through. I used an old-fashioned all-cotton batting for my first (and last!) hand quilted quilt, not knowing that there are much easier batts available. Get a sampler of batts to try; you might be surprised at the differences. Mine, for example, had pieces of seed and the oils in it created a lot of drag on the needle.

From the little research I have done, I know I would not use a needle-punched batt such as Warm and Natural (too hard to push the needle through) or a high-loft polyester batt. I would probably get a sample of Quilter's Dream to try (but not the thinnest one). Have also heard that the Fairfield cotton batt hand quilts easily if you pre-soak it to remove sizing. (Took a class from Roxanne before she died, and that was her favorite batt. She said it was great for machine quilting, but a bear for hand quilting if you didn't do the pre-soak.) If you can afford the cost, silk batting is supposed to be a dream to quilt through! Roxanne said silk batts work great for cotton tops and batting. (Sorry, I have forgotten Roxanne's last name. She was from Hawaii and her daughter has carried on her company with Roxanne product names.....)

If I were to machine quilt this top, I would probably try to do old-timey half circles (forgot what they are called -- clamshells?). The hexagons are already extremely geometric, so straight-line stitching by machine would look pretty harsh to me. I'd want the machine quilting to have a softer look and contrast with the straight lines of the hexagons. This could be achieved with free-motion waves, feathers, flames, etc. but alas, my free motion skills are very lacking. I could do the half-circles with a walking foot, though, so my stitches would be even.

Just my thoughts.......

Great looking quilt Kat! I'm no help in the quilting department as I always need someone to help me decide. Someone here will come up with an answer for you .
Prism had some good ideas!

Kat, what about making a large hexagon template that fits across the centre of a six smaller hexagons and hand quilt that, it will interlink but will keep the hexagon pattern flowing :D

Wow, ladies, thankyou so much for taking the time to give me so much advice. First, I have to confess I didnt press the seems open :oops: I didnt realise it was important. I think, as I joined the peices by hand, most of the seems have turned out flat by chance. I have some batting, which is called Hobbs heirloom.I have hand quilted some smaller items using it and it seems well-behaved. I was grateful for the suggestion about one larger hexagon, which means I could quilt a larger area. Also, the idea of threading several needles and making that your goal for each sitting. I am presuming that I will need a hoop?
As I am brand new to this, can I ask 2 questions, am I supposed to do little running stiches or kind of stab the needle down and back up again? Should I be using any special needles?
Thankyou so much for taking the time to advise me :D