I had a great time at Harrogate, Northern Quilt Show yesterday. Small and compact, but everything there that should be. I even had a chance to take a workshop on Sashico, but that's another story.
Anyway, I talked to a lovely Durham lady who was "just" handquilting a small cot quilt from 1950's satin. Gorgeous! I asked her about my triangle problem on the Mighty Wurlitzer. Her answer was so obvious and logical it made my head spin!
You quilt the vertical line top to bottom without setting a knot, then the horizontal line right to left. Then pull the thread back through to the start and quilt the hypotenuse, top to bottom.
For any shape that is based on a circle, you start at about 3-4 o'clock, quilt round as far as comfortable, fill the centre (you should never "trap" wadding), pull the thread back and quilt the rest anticlockwise.
Feathers you do in the same way, but alway do the shaft with a separate thread as this stops the whole lot puckering.
Finally, she quilts without a thimble! No sore fingers either! She holds the needle by the eye (suggests you practise with a glass-headed pin, to get the idea), stabs it between two fingers underneath, then pushes up and back with top hand until she thinks she will lose the cloth and levers the needle up, then rocks from there.
Her stiches were even and tiny, fully through all layers and just lovely. Her method looked so relaxed, there was no tension in any of her fingers. Tension on the frame was loose, but that, she said, is a matter of personal choice.
I'm going up to give it a try.
(I wish I had taken her name, she would definitely be someone to get a class with. I thank her for her generosity of time and knowledge.)
Nel (Gadget Queen)