One week later . . . and an apology

I want to start off by apologizing for several blips in my attempts at this blog thing.  I apparently had made an error in the link to the second blog post that may have kept people from finding it the other day.  My apologies.  And then Monday the person whose blog I follow intently put out a plea to her fellow bloggers to get rid of the capcha word verification on the commenting function.  Apparently it is something that blogger puts in by default.  Turns out my blog was one that had that security step.  My apologies if that kept anyone from commenting.  I believe that I have fixed it so that you don't have to do that any more.  I understand why they exist, but they are irritating!  But on to the quilting!

Okay, so I am doing pretty good at putting in at least an hour of hand stitchery every day since last Tuesday or so.  And I've made progress.  I am not sure hand quilting is exactly like riding a bike . . . something you never forget.  I feel to some extent like I am re-learning this skill.  There are some things about it that I remember, but it's been a bit of a challenge to get my stitches relatively small and even.

Here is a picture of the block I completed this week.  It took many many hours.

Here is a picture of the back.  Not very pretty.  But I know I improved as I went along.

Here's a close up of the back.

There are now 12 blocks done.  Eleven from 20+ years ago and one this past week.  I did most of a block today, some of it while watching and listening to Bonnie Hunter on Quilt Cam.  I'm not real proud of the straightness of some of those stitches!  But I think my sizes of stitches are pretty good and even.  Bonnie talks about us all knowing what a quarter inch seam allowance looks like.  I'm thinking that this quilt, my first one ever, has more like 1/3 inch seam allowances.  And my shadow quilting is not beyond the seam allowance, it is in the seam allowance.  And some places are pretty bulky.  As I went along on this block I remembered an old skill, burying the traveling of the stitches between the layers.  Duh!

I will continue to do my one hour of quilting a day as much as I can, but this has also encouraged me to work on other projects.  I was so impressed by the project that Bonnie was working on tonight that I may try to start that project as well.  I've been printing off the Barrister's Block Sow-a-long blog posts all along, but haven't started it.  I love this latest group of blocks and Randy's fabric choices and am really excited to start it!

Please feel free to leave a comment below.  The word verification should be gone!  I'd love to hear from you.

If you are interested in following along on the Barrister's Block Sow-a-long Randy's blog is http://barristersblock.blogspot.com/.  She posts sow-a-long posts on the first and third Wednesdays.  And the block posts can be found in her archives.

This post will be linked to Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville blog post from Monday, which is a linky featuring blog writers who are also doing this one hour of hand stitchery a day.