"Doing it by hand is just as much fun sometimes!"

Author - Caroline Jones

"Doing it by hand is just as much fun sometimes!"

Having just spent 2 weeks on the glorious River Avon in the even more glorious sunshine we're having I am glad to say the sewing by hand can be very relaxing indeed.

I have a small narrowboat with no room for my sewing machine and no 240V to power it anyway. Bearing this in mind I took some hand sewing with me just to keep my hand in as it were while away boating.

The sewing I took was a bit of hand quilting so I took the work piece itself, my quilting hoop, hand quilting thread, a number of quilting needles, snips and the inevitable at my age, magnifying, reading glasses! The work piece in question is a one side of a cushion cover, made of patchwork in a random squares and rectangles pattern in a nice selection of small florals the quilting required is very simple so as not to obscure the patchwork too much, besides complicated quilting would get lost in the florals along the way. I chose to do parallel lines of hand quilting at approximately a quarter inch spacing in various angles across each square or rectangle. This nice simple pattern on a floral patchwork is the complete opposite of the other side of the cushion cover which I have completed and which is traditional whole cloth quilting in my own paisleyesque design on a natural calico.

Ironically the finished cushion will probably go straight back to the boat as a comfy, decorative piece on the sofa!!

Back home now and I have a number of bridal commissions to get on with, more of those again.

Caroline, Fashion Revived