Hand Quilting

My first two quilts were made completely on the sewing machine, admittedly without really knowing what I was doing. By the third quilt, I had begun to devour quilting magazines and was ready to try hand-quilting to execute the traditional plumes and feathers that captured my attention. I made a hand-appliqued album quilt the summer I finished my Master’s degree in 1989, and a few machine-pieced, hand-quilted quilts following it. Hand-quilting can be a peaceful, absorbing activity as the needle is rocked back and forth through the three layers of the quilt. Its slow speed allows for perfect control to adhere to the design being created. However, by the early 1990s, excellent books by Harriet Hargrave taught how free-motion quilting could achieve the same results as hand-quilting in far less time. My focus changed to this style from that point onward.