Return of the Silk

 

On this rainy Saturday, I headed over to Sew Day at BAM to hand off my completed Climate Change Challenge Quilt, Burn, Grow, Slide and also brought along a hand-sewing project to work on. It's been more than a year so it was time to work on my Kawandi. I started this in a really great class back in 2021 in a class with Sujata Shah.

I added several more pieces and went all the way around a few times.

It was nice to handle all these lovely silks once again. I just couldn't help myself putting the vivid green next to the fuchsia. Zing Sing!

All The Way Round

I made it all the way around the outside of my Kawandi, with one line of stitching, so I put it up on the design wall to see how it was looking. And yes, my quilt rectangle was intentionally not quite a rectangle as per usual. I guess that I like it that way. I'm finding it fun to hand-quilt, piece and design all at once.

The green thread that I chose looks pretty nice on this fuchsia silk. So my stitches on the edge aren't exactly the most even or straight, I'm working on it.

The second line of stitching was quite a bit easier to do as Sujata said it would be.

And I ordered my teacher's book from her website, Cultural Fusion Quilts. It's got a lot of blocks that I like and many inspirations from cultures around the world.

All the tools, this is going to be a fun project that will keep me stitching for a while. Wow, do I ever like this Spagetti thread, it's so smooth and easier to stitch with.  
 

Actual Hand Quilting

I was lucky enough to get to take a class with Chawne Kimber with SBAMQG. It was called "Improvisational Hand Quilting". What a great teacher (she's a math professor so she knows how to teach!) she is, I'd say jump at the chance if you see her teaching near you.

Even though I've been quilting for a long time, I have never taken a hand quilting class. And I really don't like doing much handwork. But after learning what she taught us, I can see why people really enjoy hand quilting so much. I found it to be very soothing and still creative.

And it wasn't as hard on my hands as I'd expected because I wasn't all tense using a hoop. Something about the fabric being stretched on a hoop, that tautness that you want, especially for embroidery, always makes my hands cramp up. It's almost like they're trying to be *as tense* as the hooped fabric. But Chawne doesn't use a hoop in her hand quilting, and I found that I liked that very much. It made it a more accessible and relaxed process to me.

 Maybe it doesn't end up quite as perfect doing it this way, but it certainly has character and shows "the hand of the artist". In my opinion, that's kind of the point if you're doing alllll that handwork! I liked trying following some marked designs, like the circles, and then also free-handing the swoopy shape above.

I feel pretty good about how this is looking, even on the back.

Practice practice practice.