Dear Jane - quilting has started

So after such a long wait the poor Dear Jane Quilt has a back.

The batting was sandwiched in yesterday and today I have actually started quilting on it. 

Today I found my quilting thread and all of the tiny needles that I would need. I even bought some extra hand cream as quilting is quite harsh on the hands. I should have just gone and got my normal vitamin E cream that I use as the one that I got has perfume in it and it burned my poor delicate skin.

 It is such a thrill to put the quilt into the wooden circle for the first time. This thrill soon wares off as the reality of quilting 277 separate units. It was even fun seeing the pins that were keeping the layers together. This thrill dissipated as each pin managed to draw blood as I was taking them out of the quilt. My thumb nail too was complaining as the pins are really tight. The last one I opened using a quick unpick but that I think damaged the pin. The quick unpick I was not that worried about as I have sooo many of them.

 I always quilt from the centre out and I enjoyed starting with a happy circle. My stitching is really gross to start with and then improved to merely shoddy. As an excuse is the fact that I have only been doing quilting for 3 years and ... ok so I just need more practice, no excuses give.

The thing is that the quilts feel great and tactile and that is all that you need form a quilt. What I also liked about the centre block is that the first square is going to be right in the middle of a backing square and from here on in the will slowly but surely slide of the centre and meander into no-mans land of imprecise placement. See quilting is really and exercise in Zen.

You really have to just accept what the way the quilt will come out and not destroy the calm of trying to only accept perfection.

The next three I will do are all the greens and then I will box off the middle and start on the next occurrence.  I can see the program and now that I am initiated I just have to keep on stitching and before I know it I will be at 2% complete as it is I have not even reached 1%.

See the Dear Jane quilt is also good for maths skills as I sit and stitch I also calculate what percent I have completed and how far the thread that I have stitched would actually go.

Have a stunning day.