First off, I just wanted to say, I just learned that Lazy Gal has dropped the Quilt Mavericks ring, and I am a little sad by this. She represented what a quilt maverick should be. She was one of the first blogs I always returned to and gained inspiration by. (listen to me, it sounds like I am eulogizing her! Don't worry, she is not dead! and I wish her all the best in her quest for finding her place!) I just wanted to say I will always think of her as a quilt maverick! And her blog will always be on my blogroll. Good Luck Tonya!

Meanwhile, what have I been quilting lately? More of the same...have started machine quilting Split Personality, but will not post photo until it's bound...every other day or so, I hand quilt a bit of the other Suske quilt:


It hasn't been going as well as I had hoped...I've learned a few lessons with this one. All the fused applique receives quite a bit of stress when held in your hands while handquilting and it also makes it hard to put in a frame, so I didn't. And it is getting a little worn, I think.

I've also started machine quilting a small kids quilt for the guild's outreach program.

I took out Jinny Beyer's Quiltmaking by Hand book, from the Library. I am really enjoying this one; it is very helpful and has great instructions on hand quilting and piecing. I think it is important to learn the old methods, so that they are not lost, and if there is another power outage like we had a few years ago, I can still keep on quilting ;)



Here, I experimented with hand piecing with some scraps:



I've tried handpiecing twice before. I first learned about it while being instructed in the making our guild's logo for our chatelaines. The guild logo was a little difficult to learn and there was much griping in the guild about it, but I was determined to learn it. I tried to do it by machine but the little 1 inch squares were just as fussy to do by machine. So I thought I should practice my hand piecing with other little scraps. Don't you hate to throw out those nice little triangles you chop off the flying geese? Well I had lots of those, so I would practice hand piecing those little buggers together. I even came up with a method of string piecing them together; I would string 6 or 7 of them on a thread:


Then, I got out Jinny's book from the library and read about her techniques and I brought out the little triangles again. The good news is there is improvement! I've gone from 6 to 10 stitches per triangle.


OK so you are thinking I am a little nuts, making 1 inch squares, what can you do with 1 inch squares? I could make a quilt for my dollhouse! 1 inch = 1 foot in my dollhouse. So it would be perfect.