The first day of the NQA quilt show I took an all-day class on hand quilting taught by Darlene Christopherson. Her hand quilting is amazing!! Here is a picture of a couple of her quilts that she displayed for teaching. Not the best picture but the work was so good I hated not to show it.The wonderful thing about an all day class is that you have plenty of time for learning about all the necessary supplies as well as one on one time with Darlene. She spent the morning talking about fabrics, battings, thimbles, needles, threads, marking tools and quilting hoops. She introduced us to wool batting and I am sold! I have always been partial to Warm and Natural. It was the easiest to hand quilt that I had found. The wool batting was like pushing that needle through butter. What a difference.
She spent the afternoon helping us get the hang of rocking the needle in and out. I never got it!! I hate to admit it but I have always hand quilted without a hoop. Therefore, I have to unlearn as much or more as I need to learn. I know that I could have smaller, more consistent stitches and that my poor, old, arthritic hands would not ache as much if I will re-learn it this way. I will need to find a different thimble. I use Nimble Thimble which is a leather form fitting thimble. What I need in order to get the hang of her method is a metal thimble with a raised ridge on top to hold the needle in place while rocking. She let me borrow her thimble and it was much easier. I can tell it will take mucho practice!!
Thanks for stopping by. Happy Quilting!
