Hand Quilting

It has been a slow and lazy Sunday here at the homestead. We had baseball on television - Tribe vs. Orioles (Tribe lost) - this afternoon, so I took the opportunity to get in some good quality quilting time.

Even with a ballgame on, I still find my mind wandering as I stitch; and these particular stitches reminded me of dimples. I like dimply quilts, and I am fortunate to own several. Grandma hand quilted quite a few that are upstairs in the closet or the cupboard. Some she pieced for me; some she pieced for others; some I pieced, but she hand quilted nearly everything.

This particular quilt I am currently working on has not had a single machine touch it, unless you count an iron. I hand pieced the entire quilt top, beginning way back in the late 1990s when I needed hand projects for road trips to cross country and track meets. After I had all the stars made, I decided to attach them to one another with the muslin diamonds. That gave me more hand work to do. Over time, I had a quilt top on my hands, and I had no idea of how to finish it because of the uneven edges. That's when it went into a decade-long hibernation. In late 2014, I decided to bite the bullet and make the remaining bits to finish off the quilt top; I remember the excruciating decision to c-c-c-cut some star points off just to have a squared-up quilt. (It was not as hard as I imagined.)

I began hand quilting last November; I put it away over Christmas and brought it out again this spring. I decided that I could quilt while watching Final Four, MLB and NBA. I have been relatively productive, and I find myself now having to deal with edges.

I wonder if you can figure out what I've got going on there on the right-hand side of the quilt? It's a trick learned from Grandma when she quilted at her old quilting frame. I adapted it to my Q-Snap frame. Come on back tomorrow and I will explain.

Happy Quilting, Friends!