A Season for Handwork

As November’s chill settles in, it’s the perfect time to savor the quiet joy of handwork. In this Monday Musing, Vanessa Lyman reflects on the beauty of slowing down and stitching with intention—let’s embrace this season for handwork!

Ah, Thanksgiving and the hearth-and-home season of a brisk November… 

I’m a bit of a romantic when it comes to quilting. A patchwork quilt–handed down through the generations, threadbare in spots, faded and tattered—instantly whisks me away to the comforts of home, to nostalgia, to family. 

Not that that’s at all true in my case. My own mother’s gifts weren’t in the domestic realm. Fingerprint-free glass tables and an immaculate manicure? Absolutely. A cozy handmade quilt or a pie made from scratch? Not on your life. 

Which is probably why patchwork quilts appeal to me. 

My very first quilt was a “bite-off-more-than-you-can-chew” kind of quilt.  My friend Ann knew I wanted to learn to quilt, and she was working on a baby quilt. One weekend, she brought over her mother’s old sewing machine, set it up in my apartment, and showed me how to piece on that baby quilt.

By the next weekend when she stopped by, I had found a pattern for myself and had all the pieces cut out. The pattern was a Lover’s Knot—nothing but curved piecing—for a queen-sized quilt. I had traced the shapes onto my discount fabric using a FELT TIP marker, and had cut them all out, utterly oblivious to bias. 

Ann nearly had a heart attack.

But I finished piecing the top, and was determined to hand-quilt it. 

Hand-quilting it took me about seven years, and I swore never again.

But the lure of handwork is strong. There’s something about slowing down, about the feel of needle biting into fabric, about the slow build toward completion. The first stitch done—popping to knot through into the batting–you look over the massive expanse of quilt and think, “Oh, God.” But you learn to trust yourself, that you’ll get there, one hooped section at a time.

I tried my hand at English Paper Piecing (EPP). I love the look of all those hexies, and the idea of a portable handwork project is very appealing. One weekend, I explored all the videos I could find in the Quilting Daily TV subscription that featured EPP, and dove in. 

It didn’t last beyond the weekend, and I’m not sure why. Some UFOs pull at you (in my case, either making me feel guilty or making me impatient to hurry up and finish whatever if keeping me from it). With EPP, nah. I just shrug whenever I see those hexies in the drawer, and move on.

So no EPP. And no hand-quilted queen-sized quilts.

The only “hand work” project that I’ve stuck with is my Rose Trellis quilt. Essentially a wholecloth quilt (I just loved the fabric too much to cut it up), it was my first attempt at walking foot quilting—‘straight’ lines that look drunk. Anyway, they do the job stabilizing the quilt, and then I bound it. The rest is straight-line big stitch quilting with Perle cotton thread that I’ve added to over the past several years whenever I’m between projects or feel the lure of handwork.

It’s usable—I often put it on the bed, I’ve washed it many times–but it’s not technically “done,” and may never be.

Recently, when trying to decide what to quilt on my Maple Gust quilt, I considered a little hand-stitching.

I tested the stitch on Rose Trellis, and I adored it. On Maple Gust, I did not. Instead, Maple Gust got a free-motion flourish and a binding (very happy with it), and I turned my attention to Rose Trellis. I love, love, love the look of the feather stitch climbing the drunken walking foot lines, and have been happily adding several inches here and there.

And now my Pinterest board is filled with all kinds of embroidery stitches, I’ve re-watched Sara Gallegos’ bullion stitches on episode 4307 of Love of Quilting (Oooh! 3-dimensional stitches?!), and I find myself coveting embroidery floss.

A plan has developed for my Anacapri quilt top (based on Heather Black’s Urban Trek —check out the videos in your Quilting Daily TV subscription). I don’t want to do ALL handwork on it, but free-motion paired with some embroidery in the pink quarter circle? Looking like pottery from the Amalfi coast? Now THIS is something I’m excited for!

I like it. And I think I’ve found my handwork sweet spot—machine quilting paired with embellishment. It allows me to complete the top, and then sink into some slow, contemplative handwork.

Bring on the brisk winds of November! I’m ready going to hunker down and hand-stitch!