Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Disappearing 9 Patch


The plan last night was to skip the football game and do some weeding. So after fixing some pasta for dinner I carried it to the living room with me and turned on the tv thinking I would try to catch Tuesday’s weather. As I was flipping through the channels How to Make An American Quilt was just starting. Well I love that movie so the weeding idea went out the door.
I had made this little doll quilt earlier using a tutorial from this site. It is a disappearing 9 –patch. It is so easy to make and I believe it will be a good pattern to use later with some fat quarter packs I bought years ago. I had hand quilted it but I had yet to sew the binding down. So I sat last night stitching the binding down while I watched the movie. Pasta, good movie, hand work you can’t make for a better evening. Now I know I am going to sound like a broken record, but if you like to hand quilt and find that you really just don’t have the time please check out Tonya’s method. I used to hand quilt all the time and then upon returning to work and raising 3 active kids I just couldn’t find the time to do it. I went to a quilt retreat with some friends and one of the girls brought a quilt she was quilting on with her. I sat down that evening and worked on it and realized how much I missed the actual quilting part of quilting. I knew I could never complete a larger quilt top and dragging around a smaller one would still be a pain as I would have to take a hoop and supplies also. That is when I read how Tonya quilts without a hoop. I haven’t attempted it with anything larger then 30 x 30 at this point but it does work for me with the smaller quilts. They are so portable all I have to do is throw my thread, scissors and needles in a small bag Dawn made me and roll it inside the little quilt and it fits in my purse. I once again am able to enjoy hand quilting. I have been asked what I am doing with all these little doll quilts, not a thing. They all go on the finished quilt pile. Someday I may display them but for the time being it is not for the finished product that I am doing this I am doing it for the enjoyment of the hand quilting.