Struggling with Hand Quilting? Try This!
Great Tutorial for Beginners – Larger Stitches Show Best!
Most quilters, whether they hand quilt or not, deeply appreciate the fine quilts produced by those who do. There’s just something about hand quilting that makes quilts stand out over their machine-quilted counterparts.
Quality hand quilting is all about the stitch size and how even the stitches are. The smaller and more even the stitches the better – but that’s often not easy for beginning (or even experienced) quilters to achieve.
That’s why we were excited to find the excellent hand quilting tutorial at RebeccaMaeDesigns.com.
While this tutorial is a great hand quilting how-to, it’s designed specifically for stitching with colorful perle cotton. The stitches, rather than fading into the background, become part of the design.
We love how outline-stitching in corresponding colors of perle cotton accents a quilt’s design. But, another benefit of using perle cotton is that you want stitches to be a little larger so they show off nicely. That makes perle cotton a great starter for beginning hand quilters (and those wanting to brush up on their skills).
In this tutorial you learn what supplies you need and a lot of handy tips that apply to hand quilting with any thread. We especially like the needle threader the author uses (get 10 generic threaders here) with large-eye Clover gold eye chenille 24 needles (for use with perle cotton). Rebecca uses #8 perle cotton.
Excellent instructions are given for hiding knots, both at the beginning and end of your needle’s thread supply. These two tips can mean the difference between so-so quilting and quilting that shines.
The rocking stitch is clearly displayed and explained. This is the must-know hand quilting technique for producing small, even stitches. “Practicing” with a project quilted with perle cotton (where you want the stitches a little larger so they clearly show) will improve all of your hand quilting.
Another great tip, which means you won’t have to mark everything on your quilt top:
If you are quilting a long straight line and need a ‘guide’ try using painters tape and just stitch along side of it! It helps and the tape pulls right off and you can use it a couple more times before the ‘stick’ is worn out.
There is a lot of other good information in the tutorial, as well as a list of resources for perfecting your hand quilting.
Happy Quilting!
