marcelle medallion: adventures in hand quilting

Alright, I know I have been talking about learning to hand quilt for ages now. One of my goals has been to hand quilt at least one quilt to see how I like it and so I can say that I did it. It just feels impressive, even if it looks like crap. Originally it was to be the lilly belle quilt, but that fell apart once it became destined to be a wedding gift (once I get it washed and everything I will have some pictures of it all done).

Which leads me to my marcelle medallion quilt. As soon as the top was finished, all I could think of was how awesome concentric circles would look. And even better if they were hand quilted. So I decided to go for it. I got to start it the other day and so far I am done the center part. I am loving the way it is looking so far and at this point, I kind of enjoy hand quilting. I have been using a quilting hoop and it has worked really well for the center. Now that I am beyond that I am a little scared since I am out of things big enough to mark the circles and I am going to attempt it without any sort of hoop or frame. Things could get ugly is what I am saying.

It even looks pretty good on the back! I love the slight wonkiness of the cirlces, which is good since I don't think I could do much better. And the voile is really wonderful to be hand quilting with.

In case you are wondering, I am using size 12 pearl cotton because they didn't have any 8 at Joanns when I went to buy it and I was impatient. I have been marking my circles with a hera marker and I am loving it. I got my hand quilting info from Anna Maria Horner, Stitched in Color, and Sarah Fielke  (video on the side) and all of them were quite helpful although I think I follow the Anna Maria one closest.

So far it has been going fairly quickly so I am hoping it won't be too long before this is finished, but as long as I am enjoying the process, it doesn't matter much. I do need to find a good, comfortable thimble though so if you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

And with that, I am off to prepare for my weekend. Which will probably be spent outside as much as possible enjoying the suddenly warm weather :) Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!