I’ve made good progress with my seaside quilt over the last three weeks, I have everything I need on the side table in the lounge so when I’m watching TV with my OH I can sit and quilt.

This lovely quilt design is from the book The Seaside Quilt by Kathryn Whittingham, it’s hand embroidered, raw edge applique and now being hand quilted. The book instructions are for hand piecing too but that’s a step too far for me, mine is machine pieced.

Three weeks ago I think I was about a third of the way round and still undecided how to quilt the little star blocks…

Well I’m pleased to say I’m now about three-quarters of the way round the main design, though I’ll still have the borders to quilt once the blocks are quilted.

For the little star blocks in the top left and bottom right of the quilt I decided to stitch in the ditch, for non-quilters this means I stitched right on the seam line. I found this much easier by hand than when I’ve previously tried on the machine! I couldn’t use the clam shell pattern here as the stars are based on 1.5″ squares, whereas the rest of the quilt is in 2″ squares.

Last night I reached the top edge on the right hand side, so I’m getting there. For the wide border I’m going to follow Kate Chiconi’s suggestion of wavy lines, they can represent the patterns on the sand left by the sea.

I tried taking a photo of the whole quilt, standing on tiptoe with my arms stretched out, not my best position with my lack of balance! Hence it’s a bit out of focus and I still didn’t manage to get it all in the picture…

…when I’ve finished the quilting I’ll hang it on the washing line for a better photo!

Hand-quilting these two quilts (the cottage garden quilt and this one, both by the same designer) has really swung me over to the hand-quilting camp. When I hand quilted the Down the Rabbit Hole quilt I thought never again. With hindsight it was too big for me for a first time hand-quilting. But I think my hand embroidered quilts deserve to be hand-quilted, and now I’ve found a pattern I find easy to stitch I enjoy the stitching. The finished quilts do have a different feel to machine quilted ones, much softer and cuddlier. I’ve even got my next hand-quilting project lined up! Having said that, machine quilting definitely has it’s place and can be an art on it’s own, I’ve two quilts to make before the summer and they’re definitely going to be machine quilted!

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’ll also be linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, please follow the links to see everyone’s progress.