When I was a new quilter in 1985 I took a quilting class at the local craft store. Back then we were taught how to cut out the pieces with scissors and used cardboard templates. Towards the end of the class, our teacher showed us a tool that looked like a pizza cutter. She told us this was a Rotary Cutter and would speed cutting time. Of course we all laughed and said it could not take the place of scissors! HA!About that same time, my sister in law took a class at a quilt shop. She learned Eleanor Burns Quilt in A Day pattern for the Log Cabin. She shared with me how quick and easy it was to use this method (using a rotary cutter). And as the saying goes, the rest is history.
I started this quilt around 1986. I purchased 100% cotton fabrics from a quilt shop. My plan was to make a quilt for my then toddler son. We worked on the Log Cabin pattern, and I completed the top. It was my goal to hand quilt this quilt.
So I started working on it, but did not make very speedy progress. Hand quilting took a lot of time. As a matter of fact it was not completed until 2004!
This is one of my favorite quilts and the only one I completely hand quilted. It was fun to work on, and I love how the colors all worked together.Do you quilt by hand or machine? Or do you send your quilts out to a longarmer?
5 comments:
When I started quilting in the late 1980's, I had quilted. I didn't do much quilting again until 2010 when I started making baby quilts for grandkids. All 12 of those were hand quilted, but as my quilting expanded, I wanted to learn FMQ . A gifted machine from my husband made that possible. But I have a quilt top finished that I'm planning on hand quilting. I enjoy both!
My Aunt taught me to quilt on a 200 yr old frame & it was hand stitching or nothing,it dies take longer but I've grown to luv it, your quilt is absolutely beautiful!
I quickly learned back in the early 90s that hand quilting wasn't for me, I took a few stitches and said nope not going to do it. I did stitch in the ditch with the sewing machine until I bought my first long arm 20 years ago, haven't ever regretted it for a second!
I hand quilted 1 full/queen size quilt, and decided I'd never get another quilt finished that way. So I sent out a couple of quilts, and then decided to get a sit-down long arm. Then I realized that hoisting the large quilts on that was not for me either, so put the machine in a hoop-frame (no room for a regular frame). That has its own issues of getting the quilt set up, but nothing a bit of patience can't handle. I still sent out a couple of quilts, as I didn't want to deal with the king-size quilt, or the shifty-ness of trying to layer a flannel one. I'm still not confident enough with my quilting do to the QOV tops I make, so those are turned in to the group for others to quilt.
If you are thinking that this is very much like the "I can grow them cheaper!" tomato story, you are very correct!
It is beautiful!
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