Week 4 - Quilting Your Little Quilt

This is the week you should be working on finishing your little Crosses Mourning quilt. I started quilting mine over the weekend and hope to finish before we begin another small quilt for Feb, sometime next week.

 

I really love the look of a little doll quilt that is quilted very simply. In this quilt I quilted in the ditch around the inside of each block, then quilted inside the black part and just a simple stitch through the center of the colored cross part of the block. The sashing will be quilted with a few straight lines and I have not decided what I will do on the border yet.

If you have not tried hand quilting, now would be a perfect time. If you do not like using straight-line quilting,  here's a great place to buy quilting stencils that are easy to use with a water soluble marking pen. They also have stencils for small quilt borders so check out the border page. This little wavy one is one of my favorites and I admit I use it often.

My favorite quilting thread is YLI quilting thread. I'm very partial to the light brown as it gives a nice antique look when stitched on both light and dark fabrics.

I'm clearly not an expert and my stitches could be a little smaller and straighter, but it sure is fun and I love the look of a little quilt that's hand quilted. If you haven't taken the time to do any hand quilting, try it out on a small quilt. It doesn't have to be heavily quilted--just try stitching a straight line or Xs in the blocks to get yourself going. Even a little bit of hand quilting gives a special look to a quilt. And, don't forget, if you make a mistake, it will only add to the charm.

If I use a simple quilting design, it usually takes a couple of evenings or a week at most to finish a small quilt and is very relaxing for me. If the stitches are less than perfect or a little quirky, oh well. Antique doll quilts were not perfect either. I'm not interested in making them perfect specimens or trying to win prizes. Just having fun. I hope you are too.