My Fingers Hurt

It's amazing how much damage a little needle can do to my fingers.

Quilting Pains
And I haven't even poked myself with the sharp side at all.

Just manipulating the needle to do a quilting stitch motion has been somewhat difficult. I blame it on a few things:

- Being new to this activity, my fingers just aren't used to it
- My batting is way too thick, next time I'll know
- Even though I purchased quilting needles, I lost them somewhere and had to use a regular sewing needle.

I'm not sure how much the last piece will affect my hurting fingers, but I'll buy some more quilting needles tonight and find out if they make a difference this coming weekend.

Quilting Progress
Since I didn't know how good or bad my quilting abilities would be, I figured I'd start on a part of the quilt that was easiest and I didn't care how it came out. I started on the colored block border, making primitive echo "squares" inside each one.

My quilting started out terribly, and got better and better. My straight lines started getting straighter and my stitches started getting closer and closer. I did find it easier to quilt without the hoop, and I'd still have to get significantly better if I wanted to show the underside of the quilt. Thankfully, as a pillow, no one will see the mess I've made, and I didn't have to anchor each square.



A little bit more of a closeup.



I've finished about two thirds of the blocks on the first pillow. This might take a while. I also watched a show on Amish quilts this past weekend which let me see some of the Amish and Mennonite women quilting correctly.

Blog Issues
Blogger has been having some hardware problems that are supposed to be resolved tonight. If you access this blog using queerjoe.com, you might get a blank screen with the word "ok" on it. Accessing via queerjoe.blogspot.com should bring it up correctly.