I’ve not managed as much as I had hoped on my seaside quilt, I’ve been concentrating more on my Peppermint Purple blackwork, trying to get that finished. Both of these are perfect for sitting in front of the TV on an evening with my OH.

The seaside quilt is a design from the book of the same name by Kathryn Whittingham, it’s hand embroidered on raw edge applique. The book is available from Kathryn’s website, Patchwork Katy, (together with her Cottage Garden quilt book, my favourite quilt ever!) I’m quilting it with the clam shell shape, which started off as waves in the sea, but really shells are just as apt. It’s a nice rhythmic shape to quilt, I mark the semi-circles with small dots from a silver gel pen, I like using that as it shows just as well on dark as well as light fabrics. The picture blocks are quilted just under 1/4″ round the inside, hopefully that will be enough.

Three weeks ago I’d quilted about a quarter of the quilt…

I’m probably now just about a third quilted, so not much further, but not bad for a couple of evenings work. Last night I was quilting up by the lighthouse again. I started here as it’s in the middle and originally I was quilting round each rectangular border. I soon decided to just continue the clamshells across the border so last night I pulled out the first bit of quilting I did round the light house border and replaced it with clam shells.

I’m using a quilting hoop that’s mounted on a base, I think it’s called a lap hoop or a table hoop, I find it works best for me as the base makes an open working area underneath which I find helpful for the hand that’s working from the back, and the risk of catching the wrong bit of fabric is reduced!

I haven’t quite decided how to quilt the pair of stars at the bottom right (and the top left) The clam shell won’t work there as the triangles are a different size. I might just go round the inside of the picture block and stitch in the ditch round the stars. Last time I was also pondering how to quilt the border, I was quite taken with Kate Chiconi’s idea of wavy lines to look like the ripples on the beach, so I think that’s another decision made, thanks Kate 🙂

Hopefully next time I share this quilt I’ll have made a bit more progress. I’m enjoying the hand quilting and it’s such a happy quilt to work on!

Hand Quilt Along Links

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy and Theresa

I’m also linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday.