I've learned reading a bit more about historical quilts that my hand quilting is not what you might consider "fine". Usually I stitch right around 6 stitches per inch. I can't quite wrap my mind around how to get to 10 stitches per inch, but I've been working on my stitching a bit on a pillow cover I've got in progress. I've made it to about 7 stitches per inch, and I think I won't be able to get much finer with the wool batting. I'll give even finer a try with some cotton batting very soon.
West Virginia Quilts and Quiltmakers: Echos from the Hills has been my latest reading material. Nothing particularly attracted me to West Virginia quilters until I flipped through this book admiring the quilts within. I had to have it just for inspiration, but I actually learned a great deal reading the text. The connections and personal histories of the quilters who made the quilts within is endlessly interesting, but I'm surprised how much technical knowledge I gleaned from it as well.
This is one of the many in progress projects lying around the studio these days. I won't be adding any borders or other shapes to this quilt top, just lots and lots of triangles. I usually prefer and enjoy working with blocks, so this is a bit of a change of pace. Without large areas to feature hand quilting, I'm not sure quite how I'll quilt this. A bit of randomization might be a fun experiment considering the dancing, random look these triangles give.
Loading up my in progress piecing again. Now that I've got a big hand piecing project underway, I need a quick machine sewing project too. I've been hanging onto these fabrics for awhile now, slowly adding to the stack as it makes sense with scraps and leftovers (not photographed). Going to give equilateral triangles a go – a simple, graphic pattern for a geometric set of prints. Hard to believe I've been quilting this long without making one of these!
I started hand piecing my Lancaster Diamond Quilt in a flurry, feeling as though it was moving along so quickly until I remembered that there are 137 blocks in this quilt. HAHA yeah that's insane, really, I know it.
While the diamond patterns aren't exactly a 30 degree diamond pattern, it is very close so I went with it. We'll see if that decision comes back to bite me later, but I think I'll be a-ok. Daredevil too I guess.
Here are a few favorite blocks so far.