I Quilted!! But Not in A Big Way...

Yes, me, I did it! 

Well, before I get too carried away, I want you to know that I did it in a very small way.

Unlike my friend Suzi who can quilt a queen sized quilt before you can say it, I am definitely not that fast.  Or that good.

 

I started small... note the American Girl doll under this quilt.  It ended up as 18 inches by 24 inches.  I just did swirls back and forth.  I decided that this is the type of quilting I do best.  Relaxed, no pattern, just go with the flow.

 

This was quilt number two.  Also doll sized, maybe 20 inches square.  I made a small pillow of batting scraps, and made an equally small pillow case.  I did a kind of geometric pattern, tried to follow the lines in the striped fabric, but my corners kept getting rounder and rounder as I went.

I take NO credit for this one, it was a piece of already-quilted fabric, left over from another project.  However, I did make a matching pillow case.

And this last one was my very lame attempt at making feathers.   I decided that I need to mark those if I should ever do them again.  It's 16 inches by 18 inches.  I did a mangled version of a flower in the square blocks, then did a figure eight in the last border.  Both were more successful than my feathers.

 

I have to say that quilting with gloves works better than with bare hands, although my hands still ached after I was finished.  Maybe I'm still tensing up and gripping things too tightly.  I also need to consider clearing my table off before doing anything larger, and getting one of those extended tables for my machine.

After these were all finished, I needed a hot wax hand treatment and some pain relieving lotion.

On New Year's Eve day, Suzi and I went to our two favorite quilt shops and I bought some new gloves.  The ones I had only had grippies on the fingers, the new ones have gripper palms AND fingers.  Maybe things will go easier next time.

If I could just learn to relax at it maybe that would help too. 

I've got one larger quilt to finish for the Log Cabin Quilt Guild charity project, so I'm considering this my practice run(s).  Fingers crossed!  Ouch!  Or maybe not crossed so hard.

Happy New Year!  And sew on...