Thank you for a very helpful and timely article. I have been trying this very recently and now know why my pencils did not work. Apparently, there is also an iron-off pounce powder. I could have tried cornflour had I known this last week.

A very useful blog Carolyn. This video I have watched over and over to try and get the hang of the technique. I think I am getting there now and just need to keep on practicing. This series is really valuable – thank you.

Brilliant series I’m binge reading and watching, my next quilt is going to be a superking ……. wouldn’t be able to afford to send it off to be quilted and definitely it’s not going to fit through my machine ! Thank you so much I’d love to know where your frame came from ? I admire those quilters in Gee’s Bend the way they sit on the porch and stitch as a group and gossip working as a team to finish their quilts.

No perle cotton? So many quilters are using that these days! I’ve made prize-winning quilts using perle #8 and traditional quilting with small stitches.

Thank you for this very helpful guide. I am a great admirer of your beautiful work. I am a keen patchworker but a novice quilter – so every tip is very useful indeed.

I just wanted to mention, as an aside, and I hope you won’t mind this, but now that we know more clearly just how very harmful polyester is to our environment, how it doesn’t break down organically (just like plastics) that perhaps it would be better not to promote it, no matter how useful and popular it might have been in the past. Naturally, it’s good to use up what we already have at home, but let’s not encourage the buying of it ? I really hope that you don’t think I am out of line for raising this, and there are lots of areas that I am looking at to see how I can reduce my harmful impact on the world with my hobbies and lifestyle. We could all do better, I know.

Great article! There are a few things I feel differently about, which is always good starting point for discussion.

Batiks – vary a lot. Don’t dismiss them out of hand, plenty of us are happily hand-quilting them. The needling test is an excellent idea. I’ve come across a few batiks that are very stiff and hard to needle, and they stay that way, so if you notice a fabric is like that and you plan to hand-quilt, don’t use much of it. In general, they’re a bit harder to needle at minimum, so factor that in when considering batting choice, which type of needle and thread you’re using, and whether you have disabilities that make it harder to quilt.

Using semi-plain or plain fabrics – yes, they show up quilting better, but there is absolutely no need to limit yourself to those if you are hand-quilting, because there is usually a way to make the quilting show up. Thread thickness and stitch size make a big difference. If you are using thin thread and tiny stitches, the quilting is more likely to show up as a sort of indented line, whereas with perle 8 thread and big stitch quilting, you can see the quilting line clearly, especially if you pick a contrasting colour for your thread. And if the batting is quite puffy, the stitching will show up even more. I’ve quilted extremely busy, large-print fabrics where the quilting shows up nicely.

It’s advisable to make sure your quilting shows up well when you’re a beginner, even though you may be tempted to hide it, because you need to see how it looks in order to get your stitches even. Whether you are going for big stitches or small stitches, stab stitch or rocking stitch, it’s the evenness that’s crucial.

It’s lovely to see Welsh quilting in this article. It’s definitely my favourite quilting tradition. I hope we’ll see modern quilting shown as well.

I really enjoyed reading your article and found it informative. Being relatively new to sewing / quilting (just 2 years) I haven’t tried any hand quilting anything yet. However I look forward to reading all your other parts and then maybe I might bite the bullet (needle!) and give it a go.

Thanks for this introduction. I am really looking forward to reading the rest of the series, as I enjoy hand sewing, but my hand quilting so far has been just fairly basic straight lines.

What a lot of information. Thank you.