(mellow strumming music) - Hello, I'm Corey Yoder
of Coriander Quilts, and I'm excited to be here with you today. We are gonna be talking
about hand quilting. And I think one of the big things that people get hung up on when they start thinking
about hand quilting, first off is the actual
hand quilting part, but then secondly, they're
a little bit confused about where to start with
their hand quilting supplies. So today I'm gonna be sharing with you what I like to use, but then other supplies
that you might consider for ways to make hand
quilting work for you. Everybody is different and
just like with piecing a quilt, different quilters have different ideas about the pins they'd
like to use, or the iron, do we prewash, those sorts of things. You're going to find that hand quilting has similar options for you as well. So that's what I'm gonna
be talking with you today. But first I want to take
a minute to tell you about how I came into hand quilting. So I grew up with generations of quilters on my mom's side of the family and on my dad's side of the family, so I have always had it in my
blood, I guess you would say. But when I was at home, I was not interested in
hand quilting at all. We always had quilts in a frame at home, and my mom would have her
mom over and her aunts, and we would have get-togethers
to quilt the quilts. And when mom needed a quilt quilted, she would have the people over. And if my grandma needed a quilt quilted, we would go over to my grandma's house and we would hand quilt over there. So my mom had all of us, my sisters and I, try to hand quilt at least once or twice. My brother may have gotten out of having to try hand quilting,
I'm not sure on that one, he's the baby of the family. So he might not have gotten the rules of having to try hand quilting, but my sisters and I certainly did. But really what I remember
most about quilting was just the community that you had with your family members around, and everyone was chatting and laughing. And I just have such good
memories of hand quilting. And that is really what hand
quilting means to me now, it's that community. So I always encourage people to try it, see what you think. It's oftentimes much more
intimidating in your head than it's ever going to
be once you get started. So let's talk supplies. The first thing we're gonna
talk about are the needles. So I prefer to use an embroidery needle, a size seven embroidery needle. You'll see up here my preference is the John James Embroidery
Needle, size seven. It has a longer shaft than what you're going to typically
use for hand quilting. The type of hand quilting
that I like to use, it's called big stitch quilting, or long stitch, or pick stitch. Any of those terms refer to
this type of hand quilting. And the technique is the same
as what you might consider traditional hand quilting, where you're using the very fine stitches, and smaller needles, and finer thread, but the techniques are entirely the same. So when you're looking for a needle, you're going to want to choose a needle that has a longer shaft, that's going to accommodate the thread. The stitches are longer, and it's going to
accommodate those stitches. And then the eye of the needle, you want one that is a fatter, longer eye. So that's what you're going to
be looking for with a needle. There's no wrong or right needle. You just have to find one
that works well for you. One thing I do like to suggest is the Pepper Cory Big
Stitch Quilting Needle Pack. This pack is wonderful because it has a lot of different types of needles, longer ones, shorter ones, ones with fatter eyes, narrower eyes. So you can really try a
bunch of different ones. And you're not going to
know what type of needle works well for you until you try some. So that is a great needle pack to try. And even though I use the
embroidery needle, the size seven, a lot of people find that
needle to be too bendy. And it does bend when I'm hand quilting, and I actually don't mind that. But some hand quilters don't prefer that. So just because something works for me, doesn't mean it's going to work for you. And while we're talking
about needles and thread, let's just go right into threads. So, I always kind of feel like if you're going to put the
work into hand quilting, you want thread that you're
going to be able to see because you put the work into it, let's let people enjoy what you have done. So I like to use colorful thread, and I like to use a heavier weight thread. So I usually end up using a 12-weight or an eight-weight thread. I use different brands. The quilting that you
see on my projects here and on these pillows over here are all done using primarily
Aurifil 12-weight thread, which is going to be a nice... It's a heavier weight
thread, but it's not so heavy that it becomes difficult to quilt with. I have a thread pack,
which has all of the colors that I like using from Aurifil. It's my Sunny Stitches
hand quilting thread pack. These are 12-weight threads, and you can see all of the colors here. When I was picking out
colors for the thread pack, I wanted things that were going to work for multiple collections. So it's just the warm, sunny colors that I like to work with. And this thread works
wonderful for hand quilting. Alternatively, you could use
like a DMC if you wanted to. I've used Finca Threads,
eight-weights or 12-weights are my preferred weights. The eight-weight is a heavier weight. As you go lower with your number, the thread weights are thicker. So just keep that in mind as
you're choosing your threads. The next thing we will talk
about here are thimbles. There are a lot of different options that we can go with on thimbles. And I would highly suggest
that you try using a thimble. You might find that it's not
your favorite thing to do, but it is going to help
with your quilting. You'll be able to quilt
for longer periods of time. It's gonna save your fingers. With that being said, I
don't always use the thimble. But I'm gonna tell you what you should do, even if it's not always what I do. When I use a thimble, my favorite one to use is a little Clover. It's a little leather thimble
with just a little silver pad right on your finger. And I like this one because it
is a little more lightweight. I don't feel like it adds a lot of bulk. Sometimes thimbles can
feel a little bit bulky. I know my mom and my
grandma and great aunts, they always use these big silver ones and I could never get used to these, but this is still what my mom uses. So if that's something
that you like using, then just go for it. There's no right or wrong thimble to use. It's just what works best for you. Another great option
are these Poke-A-Dots. These little guys are little adhesive pads that you can just adhese. I don't think that's quite the right word, but you can stick 'em
right to your fingers and they will protect your fingertips without adding any bulk to your fingers. So these are Poke-A-Dots,
they are a great option. And there are even lots of other options. There's silicone thimbles. I've even gone so far
as to just bandage up whatever finger was getting
beat up a little bit more just because I don't like a lotta bulk. And if I'm doing a small project, I can get away without using a thimble. So I will show you how to do that too, because that might be you. And I don't ever think you should feel deterred from hand quilting just because you're unsure of the supplies or something doesn't feel right. You just gotta find the
combination of things that works well for you. Moving on from thimbles, we will talk about marking tools. I like to mark out everything
before I hand quilt it. I find that that just helps
keep everything nice and tidy. The marker that I prefer most often is the Mark B Gone marker. This is a water soluble marker. And it will come out once
you thoroughly wet it. Now I will tell you that if
you don't thoroughly wet this, it can come back and you
can have some blueback, but after you wash it in
your machine the first time, I've never had marks come by. And I am pretty vigorous with my marking, and I also iron, I starch, and I've never had
trouble with that marker. With that being said, sometimes you don't want to put
markers onto your quilt tops that you are going to actually be marking. And then if that's you, I might suggest using the Hera Marker. This is a marker that just puts a crease. You use it just like a marker. So you lay your ruler down and you mark with the Hera Marker. And it just puts a crease
on the top of your fabric. So you're not actually
putting any marks on. And that's a great option for you if you're concerned about
putting any sort of marker or anything like that. A chalk marker, chalk pencil
would be another option that would be great if you were concerned about putting something
permanent onto your quilt top. So the Mark B Gone is kind of my standby, but there are other
options for that as well. I will tell you, I have this little guy pulled off camera, the Frixion Marker. I highly recommend people not to use these to mark their quilt tops. I love using 'em for
half-square triangles, or for flying geese, places that you're not ever
going to see the marks. But on a quilt top, I've
heard too many stories of the marks coming back, or the marks bleaching dark fabrics that
I just encourage people to steer away from these
just for marking quilt tops, even if you use them in
other parts of quilt-making. Let's talk about batting a little bit. So with hand quilting, I prefer
to use a low-loft batting. I find that my stitches on
my quilt top show up nicer. And again, if I am taking
the time to hand quilt, I wanna make sure that
people are going to be able to see the stitches, so I
like a low-loft batting. And I also prefer like an
80/20 cotton poly blend. Some hand quilters do
prefer to use 100% cotton. And you're also gonna find
some that will swear by silk, or swear by wool or bamboo, so there are different options. The one thing to keep in mind when you're hand quilting
is with 100% cotton, occasionally, you can run
into clumps of fibers, the cotton fibers within the batting that if you were doing
a larger project, could, I mean it could become bothersome. But I know hand quilters, there are ones that love
100% cotton for the batting and it does give a really nice weight, and they breathe so nice,
and the drape is really nice. So again, that's one of those things you're gonna have to find
what batting you prefer. And if you've pieced quilts before, I'm sure that you have a
batting that you prefer using, and you might just want to experiment with the type of batting
that you have on hand and see what works well for you. When I am making my quilt sandwiches, I prefer to use the 505 Spray Baste. And again, I do a lot of smaller projects when I'm hand quilting. I don't often take on
large quilts to hand quilt. So I find that the 505 works
very well for spray basting. You can move your pieces around nicely. If you've worked with 505 before, you know how nice it is to work with. It doesn't gum up your needle at all when you're hand quilting. And I just find that
that's kind of my go-to. You can also safety pin
baste or thread baste. There are different
options for that as well. So it's another one of those things you're gonna experiment a little bit with. And then lastly, the rulers. So when I mark quilts, I just use a ruler. I oftentimes will use
just a Creative Grid, something that fits across as
much of my project as it can. So you might for pillows or minis, something like this is going to be great. If you're using something longer, as long as you have in your stash, that's what I prefer to use. I just grab my longest ruler
and I'll mark the line. And typically with hand quilting, when you're using these
big stitches like this, your quilting designs are
going to be pretty simple. You're not gonna be doing
feathers or stippling, or anything of that nature, oftentimes, because it's not going
to show up as nicely. With the bigger stitches
and the bigger gaps between your stitches, you're gonna find that the simpler you keep
your quilting design, the happier you're going
to be with the results. And so just a long ruler
is going to work great for you to mark all of
your quilt tops with. I can't forget the cutest part
of the items I have up here. So you have all of your quilting supplies and you're gonna need
somewhere to store 'em. And I always store all
of my quilting supplies in a Sew Together bag. It works wonderfully. I don't know if you've ever
seen one of these bags. I imagine you have because
they pop up all the time. And every time I see one, I just think it's cuter than the next. So these bags have zippers inside and they work just beautifully for tucking your scissors down in there. I can fit everything I
need to hand quilt with me in this bag with the
exception of like the batting and bigger items. But all the little small items
I just tuck down in here. And if you're working on
a small quilting project, it's very portable. You can take everything along with you and it makes just a such a nice way to easily transport your supplies. And I even added some
hand quilting on there onto my Sew Together bag because
it's my hand quilting bag. That is a must have. This is the Sew Together
Bag Pattern by Sew Demented. And it's a great pattern, and one I really recommend
if you need something cute to tuck your quilting supplies down in. So in our next segment, we are going to be talking about a pillow. I'm gonna show you guys how to piece a simple pillow project. And then we will actually be talking about the quilting stitches and how
do we go about hand quilting? And I think you're gonna find out that it will be easy and fun, and I hope you will join along. So I will see you soon. (upbeat music)
(sewing machine stitching)
