I'm a new member, living in Washington, DC. I'm making my first quilt, and I do not machine quilt. (I've had 3 sewing machines in the past, and have hated every one of them and ended up giving them away!) I've just finished piecing the top, and am trying to correct little problems before I face quilting. My pattern is of 22 stack 'n whack hexagons set on point. It's intensely vivid, which is good, because I'm hoping it will draw the eye away from where I have some off-center centers where the hexagons join together. How DO you fix that?? And I have some points at the end that will likely be guillotined a trifle, as well.
I have just realized that actual quilting requires a completely different handstitch than the usual running stitch. I will be taking a class today at the Jinny Beyer studio, and hope I can master it in 3 hours. I'm slow in assimilating new handmovements; I took a course on tesselations recently, and found myself well behind on cutting the tesselation patterns out (probably failed 2nd grade), and so I hope I'll get this new stitch under my belt. I've bought a special spoon -- hope it does the trick! Do I sound a bit anxious? I am, I am.
I'm good on color and design and hope that these strengths will keep me going as I struggle through this my first quilt. I hope this group will have at least a few other hand quilters who can give me advice -- quilting is an obsessively fascinating skill, I think, with the richest of rewards.
Stitch happy!
Susan