Hand Stitching

I've loved quilts and quilting for as long as I can remember. To this day I've got quilt pictures and patterns that I ripped from women's magazines in high school and saved with the thought that "some day" I would make a quilt myself. I just knew it was a life long task, so I kept putting it off. Then I realized the pioneer women made lots of quilts for their family's comfort, and they didn't have the conveniences I did, so maybe I'd better get on with it. And now I have.

One of my favorite quilter/bloggers, Bonnie K Hunter, has been inspiring me to get more quilting done. First just by seeing that she manages to make huge beautiful quilts and travel to lecture and teach while having a family and social life AND posting on her blog, often several times a day, just to keep all the rest of us inspired and motivated. Made me realize how much I COULD be getting done if I would just do something every day instead of thinking it is such a big  project, why start?

Bonnie has issued a challenge to do some hand stitching, just needle and thread, for an hour a day this month. Now in reality, we know that is probably not going to happen, but at least it will help keep it in my mind, so I will definitely get more done than I would have without the challenge.

So you can see above that I logged 3 1/2 hours yesterday. Okay, it was a holiday, but it helped me get a jump start on the rest of the week. I watched some "Storage Wars" on the DVR while stitching in the recliner in the afternoon, then I got another hour-plus done while sitting in front of the computer watching Bonnie sew a binding on a quilt on live stream "Quilt Cam." The picture shows just a bit of the little table runner I designed and made a couple years ago that I am now hand quilting. Everything I need is on the little table next to my recliner, mostly kept together in a box meant for large glasses--it has a flocked lining so snips of threads stick to it, and it closes firmly to keep everything together and handy, even a full sized wooden spool of thread. I have Linda Franz, inventor of Inklingo, to thank for that idea.

Thanks for the inspiration, Bonnie.