Handstitching

Posted on November 13, 2017 by prairiemoonquilts in Knitting and Crochet

Last week, November 8th marked the end of my second attempt at 100 Days of Handstitching.

This time, I finished 13 projects, and moved several others further along, so it was better than my first attempt.

I will say there were days when I simply could not take the time to do handwork because I had to keep at the machines for deadlines. Then there were also days when I was just too tired to even give it an effort. I don’t do my best work when I’m exhausted, so that’s never a good time to try hand stitching.

But I’ll show you a bit of what I accomplished . . .

I finished knitting a prayer shawl.

It’s a real pretty mint green yarn done in this pattern:

But the color is washed out in the first picture, for some reason. OK, the reason is because I suck at photography, so please refer to the second photo to get a sense of the real color it is!

I also worked on my Granny Stripe Afghan some more, finished two more knit dishcloths, and started a new prayer shawl:

And a crochet washcloth:

I put the binding on 7 quilts (here are three of them):

And sewed a hanging sleeve onto a quilt:

If you’re in need of a good tutorial on how to make and attach a hanging sleeve to your quilt, Jacquie Gering has a good one on her website HERE.

I did a little bit of English Paper Piecing:

And appliqued some vintage Dresden plate blocks onto backgrounds for a customer. There are 16 of these vintage blocks, and the fabrics are wondrous!

See how some of the wedges have rounded tops and some have pointed tops? We have no idea why they were mixed like this, but we discussed it and decided to leave the pointy ones pointed, and the rounded ones rounded, and I love them like that — I think it adds so much cute charm to these blocks! Now it’s up to her to press them, trim them, and set them into a completed quilt top.

I also had to sew a button back on my shirt, so I’m definitely counting that!

Whew! You can get a lot done in 100 days!

I’m not starting another 100 Days challenge for myself right now, but if you read yesterday’s post, you’ll see I have plenty on my to-do list, including lots more hand stitching.

How about you? Are you hand stitching on anything? I’d love to hear what you’re working on!

4 responses to “Handstitching”

  1. Ceil Podzimek says:

    I know you like handwork and are so good at it. I have done enough in my lifetime already, I think. I have done some hand quilting back in the day, but nowadays if I can’t get it done on my machine, I think twice about it. I machine stitch all my bindings and don’t regret that at all. I still have some hand work that I usually do in the evenings in front of the TV, but believe me, it’s not much. I think that after working so many years and not doing much sewing or quilting at all, I’m trying to get as much done now as I can – and hand work takes too much time!

  2. randy says:

    Ha, counting the button was smart. I just returned from a 4 day quilting camp.. Wowza I got stuff done I added 29 blocks to my November count (no you don’t need to keep track yet) We got a request for 14 boys aged 11-16 quilts for December and Of course most of the ladies had girlish quilts done. So I dug deep, put my safety belt on my chair and churned out two donation quilts and than machine quilted and bound two more… phew…

  3. Sue Hook says:

    I love your prayer shawls. I wish I would have kept up on my knitting skills. I can crochet but not knit. I am sure I could teach myself again but sewing always wins.

  4. Marlene says:

    I have always loved handwork since my Granny taught me to embroider when I was 4. I am never w/out a WIP. That is part of what got me involved in quilting. I do a lot less hand quilting these days; but, I hand sew every binding. I like the way it looks, I enjoy doing it, and with machine piecing and machine quilting, it is sometimes the only opportunity to sit wrapped in a quilt I made before it leaves my home forever. Handwork is not something I put on a schedule. It is something I pickup whenever I sit down to watch TV or porchsit or take along when I know I will be doing a lot of sitting and waiting. These days when there is so much rush, rush, rush . . . even our quilting seems to be on a “get it done” scale . . . it’s nice to sit with a cup of coffee and put our hands on doing something slow and beautiful even if it’s for just 15 minutes.

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