quilt wrangling

Last night, I finished quilting my Hunter's Cabin quilt and spent the later part of the night watching television and sewing in about half of those ends that come from "in the ditch" quilting.

I'm very pleased with the quilting pattern on the back - I just wished I hadn't been so careful in matching the thread colour to the fabric - a darker colour would have showed off that "log cabin effect".

I really want a dark binding for this quilt but it's almost impossible to get flannelette (except that designed for babies) in the middle of summer!

Lessons I've learnt while quilting this project:

• gloves are remarkably effective in getting a grip on the quilt; without them my hands just slide over the flannelette; with them, that quilt is only going where I tell it! I use Ansell Hyflex which I bought for about $6 at my local supermarket.
• my hands are for holding the quilt flat and gently guiding the seam in the right direction not for pushing the quilt through the machine - that is the job of the feed dogs and the integrated feed system!
• don't try to put the bulk of the quilt through the throat of the machine - the flannelette stubbornly refuses to move through the throat making smooth quilting very difficult.
• I should make sure that the excess backing fabric is not folded under the quilt when beginning a line of quilting - otherwise I'll have to unpick it and re-sew it!
• consciously relaxing my shoulders is absolutely necessary!