Hand sewn projects in Bangkok, Thailand

So far the  trip has been wonderful.  It's hot and humid but that is to be expected in this area of the world.  I get to be where I grew up and be with my mother so it's all good.

One of the reason I came during this time of the year is because I get to go to my father's burial site.  It's about 4-5 hours drive from Bangkok.  It's such a beautiful area.  My husband and two children came here once in April of 1997, our first trip as a family back to Thailand.  According to Chinese tradition, during this time of every year children will go back to their ancestors' burial site to make food offerings and to pay respect. We brought food and paper goods for the ceremony. We cleaned up the surrounding and decorated the area with color ribbons, flower petals and a small wreath. Some family will bring small cans of red and green paint to repaint the lettering on the tomb stone. My sister had ordered the ground keepers to do that for us. At the end we lid fireworks. They were so loud and gave such a nice touch at the end.  It's a day of remembering and offering gratitude. I'm grateful for my parents for working hard all their lives to provide for us.

My father's burial site, such a beautiful location

For this trip I decided to try my hands on English Paper Piecing.  I chose the hexagon shape to start.  First I worked on 1 1/4" size, then moved to 3/4" size and now I'm working with 1/2" pieces.  To my surprise it's as addictive as other quilters said it would be.  I must have made close to 100 pieces so far.  I knew I wanted to make them in black and white color theme, but I have no idea what I'm going to use them for at this point.  I may use some for applique for my new iPad bag.  I'll write more about that.

Have a great week everyone!

My hand quilting experience continue.....Part 3

We finally are done with the hand quilting job.  It has been great 2 months; quilting with my dear friend in the morning.  Here are some snap shots of the quilt.   Now I have to put binding on it.  It's going to be a challenge to square up this quilt.

My dear friend, JoAnn

My hand quilting experience continue..... Part 2

After the first quilt, I still didn't have the confidence in hand quilting.  I felt I didn't do it right because I mixed hand quilting with some machine quilting.  I was impatient and didn't have the right skills.  The machine quilting looks terrible too so I stopped after a few squares done.  Until today that poor quilt is still not done.

Then a few months ago, a daughter of a very dear friend of mine gave me a sewing machine and a quilt top that her mother made because she knew I'm a quilter.  This quilt is a California-king-size double wedding rings quilt.  My friend made this quilt top before she had a stroke.  Now living in an assisted living home, she can't use her right arm or leg.  I told her daughter that I'd finish the quilt and give it back to her.  I feel that this quilt should be with her family.  I want to hand quilt it because I knew my friend loves hand quilting.  She traced all the quilting patterns on all of the squares and hand quilted on one square already. 

I approached another dear friend, Jo Ann, who I know has done hand quilting on all her quilts.  Jo Ann is a quilter, a sewer and a crafty person all around.  Her husband is also a crafted metal worker.  Jo Ann agreed to teach me and help me with this project and we set out to do just that.  One fine day on her back porch, we set the quilt on a frame that her husband made for her.  So in the past few weeks I got to sit down and quilt with her.  It was so nice and relaxing.  We got to share stories and we laughed a lot.  Times went by so fast and I really had a good time.  In the mean time I also learned to make bread and jam from Jo Ann.  She is a wealth of knowledge.  She is also kind and always doing some- thing for someone.  She'll make bread or treats for friends when she hears that they're in a distressed situation.  What a great gal she is!

With Jo Ann's easy going approach, I have gained confidence and enjoy the process more.  We didn't strive for perfection.  We didn't count the number of stitch per inch.  She just said, 'make the stitch as even as possible', and that's what I focus on.  On one of the square, I took 3 hours to finish.  Jo Ann works so fast and the quilting is almost done.  I'll post more pictures later when it's done.

Now I feel confident that I can do hand quilting.  I will take off the machine quilting that I did on my first quilt and finish hand-quilting it at last.  

My first quilt - a guinea pig for my hand quilting. Part 1

My quilting hobby started when I quit my computer career over 20 years ago to become a mother.  In 1991, our young family moved into our first home.  Soon I decided to make a tablecloth for our bare dining table.  I had seen quilts on magazine covers and fell in love with them.  I thought a nine patch quilt table top would be perfect for me.  I started sewing nine patch blocks but they looked terrible.  My blocks turned out uneven; no two blocks were the same size.  Having no clue of how to fix them, I put those blocks in a closet where they languished.   Two years later, we welcomed another child to our home.  My life was quickly filled with babies diapers, mommy and me classes, PTA and Booster Club meetings and church callings.  Fifteen years later I found those blocks and decided to take a quilting class in an adult education program at a local high school.  With help from a great teacher, a square ruler and a rotary cutter, I trimmed them all to the same size.  I also made some more half triangle blocks to finish the quilt top.

I decided to try hand quilting.  I saw my friend's quilt that she hand quilted and I thought, 'oh, it's so easy, she uses running stitches.'  So I did the same.  After quilting almost half of the half triangle blocks, I showed it to my teacher and she almost passed out.  'No, no, no she said, 'that's not the way to hand quilt!'  So she showed me the correct way to hold the needle and how to move it up and down.  The stitches came out more even and looked better.  I finished the other half of triangle blocks.  When it's time to do the nine patch blocks, I would try all sort of motifs on them.  Because there were a lot of seams on the nine patch blocks, I had a hard time hand quilting through them.  I started to lose interest and became very impatient with them, so I decided to machine quilt instead.  In another words, I was trying to learn machine quilt at the same time.  But then I found myself starting and stopping the machine many times within one block so I changed to a different motif design.  By this time my poor first quilt had so many weird looking quilting motifs on it.  I told myself, 'it's ok, no one will see this quilt.'

Needless to say the quilting on this quilt was terrible.  But I love this quilt still and use it every time the weather turns cold.  It's a lap quilt and it's perfect for watching TV with.  As you can tell, I changed my mind about using it as a table cloth.  I didn't want anyone to spill any thing on my hand quilted first quilt.  Are you kidding?  I spent many, many months on this quilt, so I bought an inexpensive table cloth instead. 

That was my first experience with hand quilting.  Next post, I'll tell you about my other experience with hand quilting.