Saturday 21 March 2015

hand quilting vs machine quilting or both!



I've got a finished quilt to share today! 
{yay-e-e-e finish #4, another project to cross off my FAL  list!}





the back








I tossed up for ages about how to quilt this scrappy stacked coins quilt! It's a simple pattern, with a simple (if somewhat 'bright') colour scheme, surely one element, like maybe the quilting, could be a just a bit more dynamic? But I struggle with fmq and I thought I would get bored or give up if I hand quilted it all!

In the end I had it machine quilted by Carol Fearon, however, I asked if she would leave all the pink solid bits unquilted for me to do. I do hand quilting now & then, but I've never tried the big stitch quilting before. I experimented a bit with different threads & needle sizes, looking for which would stitch smoothly & easily. And I finally decided to use a pink variegated embroidery floss with a large eyed needle! Like most things, the more you do the better it is, and I found if I loaded up the needle, my stitches seemed to look that much more even. I'm very happy with the finished combined effect!

On another note, I'm also finding my DS fabrics blend in really well with many others, do you find that too? I used several in the piecing of this quilt, the geometric fabrics are a nice balance with the florals, and her Franklin Glen Geo Calico worked really well for my binding too! This quilt is now finished and on a bed in it's new home.


For more details about my progress & inspiration on this quilt see here.
Linking up with aylin here  for TGIFF.
{finish #5 see my FAL 2015 list here}



8 comments:

Liz said...

Great work!! I'm a big fan of hand-quilting, and also a big fan of mixing hand quilting with machine quilting - gives the piece a nice variety of textures.

Sew Quilt Designs said...

Looks really good with machine and hand quilting. You're on a roll Linda ! :)

Karyn said...

I have struggled to get large stitch hand quilting as even as I would like. Perhaps just more practice! I saw a youtube vid this week of Jen Kingwell demonstrating larger stitches.

Julie said...

Way to go Linda - you a re a legend with finishing off things this year.

Linda @ kokaquilts said...

Thanx! I must admit, I started out the year knee deep in unfinished projects, but have been working steadily on improving my 'starts: finishes' ratio! Linda

Linda @ kokaquilts said...

Yes, I watched that too, and her one about making little quilted cross stitches, which really seemed like a nice alternative, but I haven't tried it yet! AND the other one I watched was Angela Walters on quilting... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGyYSJhk0QA ... she is talking about machine quilting admittedly, but I like to think the same applies to hand quilting too! Linda

Maryse said...

Yess you are on a roll ... Congratulation on another finish! I like the combination of machine and hand quilting, I have been doing this myself on my granny square. The big stitch adds so much interest. Your quilt is beautiful!!

Adrianne @ On the Windy Side said...

This is lovely - I really like the combination of hand and machine quilting. Its the best of both worlds really.