You Spin Me Round, Round... Again!

Edit: I am linking this with Lily's Quilts monthly linky posty thing. I have a Lily's Quilts button in my side bar. She is the bee's knees. Between sewing machine malfunctions and house guests I didn't get as much done as hoped in June so I am harping back to an older post.

Sorry if you are tired of the sight of this quilt in progress. But I am pleased to announce that I have completed the perle cotton stitching. Woohoo! Every pinwheel is now in motion. Sort of. Maybe?

The pinwheel that is getting away!

I have said in previous posts that I have really enjoyed using the perle cotton and that I think it will be the hand quilting thread of choice for me for now on. Several people have told me that they aren't any good at hand quilting, so despite liking the look of it they don't think they could accomplish the same effects that other quilters do. If you put yourself into this category then please consider this -

- I have never hand quilted with perle cotton before and am more than pleased with my efforts.
- If I can do it then so can anyone else because I can not be considered expert in quilting in any way at all.
- You have nothing to lose in trying, other than the pleasant realisation that you actually quite like it after all.

A few years ago I did a one day course on hand quilting at my local quilt shop with the absolutely brilliant Barbara Chainey. One of the lasting pieces of advice she gave that has stayed with me is that it is not the individual stitches that count but the over all effect of all the stitches together on the quilt. They don't all need to be equidistant from each other. They even sometimes fail to form a proper stitch on the back of the quilt. It doesn't matter. Stand back and see how it looks when you have a few rows done. Look at her website on the link I put with her name and you will see some absolutely amazing whole cloth quilting. (And her stitches are perfect despite her advise.)

If any of you have a fear of hand quilting then I hope her words help you as much as they helped me.

So here are some photos of how the overall stitching looks on my quilt -

On a bright day how do you avoid all those godawful shadows on the quilt when you are photographing it?

The pink perle cotton works here but if I had to do it again I might choose a different or stronger shade.

Still love those scooter girls!

I now have the very important task of sorting out Emily's 'packing' for her residential trip. She worked very hard on packing yesterday but I will not have peace of mind until I reassure myself that she really did put in everything that was on the list.

For those of you who do not know, a residential trip is what happens here in Year 4 where the students go away for three days and have an absolute lark - wall climbing, canoeing, raft building, something mucky in a swamp, etc. For the students a complete joy. For the mothers, just a lot of very dirty, exhausted and happy kids at the end of it.

I shall link this post to Quiltstory for my usual Tuesday show and tell - and the joy of looking at what other bloggers are up to out there that I might not have seen otherwise.

You might also want to take a look at Annabella's blog Life's Rich Pattern if you haven't already. She is doing a brilliant giveaway for her 100th post. She doesn't just quilt but also makes beautiful jewellery and takes the most amazing photos. I started following her blog just to see what wonderful things she would capture with her camera next. Then I made a friend in the blogosphere because she is so nice. That is the great thing about this whole bloggy thing. You get to meet the most amazing people spread out around the world that you never would have had the chance to otherwise. Got to love it!

Susan