Giant Granny Square Progress!

I am so excited for this! Who knew that hand quilting would be so fun?! I am loving this! On Friday I basted, marked my lines, framed my quilt and cut my pearl cotton!

Then it started!

I am by no means awesome at this, but it's a lot of fun! :)

I did some research and learned some good tips from Rachel at Stitched in Color here and here, as well as from Anna Maria Horner here and here (Thanks Melinda for the links!).

I am using a Q-Snap Lap Frame 17x17 and I LOVE it!!! I am using most of the supplies that Rachel lists here. Like these Clover Water Soluble Pencils. They are nice! Though I bought my pearl cotton from Michael's and they didn't have a great selection of colors in the 8, so I am using size 5. I like it, though I'd like to try more of the bigger sized thread sometime. I also learned a few tricks from my mom that I'll share with you soon so I don't forget them! Oh, and someone had said not to spray baste it, but then I read that Rachel did, and I totally love spray basting so I went right ahead and did it. So far it's worked great! :)

The thing I love most about hand quilting so far is that it's SO easy to stop and go! The perfect project for when my little ones are off playing but still need me every 5 min. Unlike crotchet or quilting, I don't even have to think about coming to a stopping point before I can put it down. I LOVE it! I think I will be doing a lot more hand work this summer! Hopefully I can gain the patience for it as well and learn to not rush my stitches.

My little ones love it too! At one point Jacks INSISTED that it was raining and I had to stop so we could hide under it for a few minutes. Talk about interruption friendly! ;)

Do you want to make a Giant Granny Square?? I'll post a tutorial soon. :) I have a little bit of figure to do for the numbers and then I'll have it ready. (Thanks to my dad for being a math wiz and helping me out! I think I'll get the sizing right next time!) Until, then, I will be stitching away! :)

Have a beautiful Sunday!! :)

Embroidery with Mom

My mom came over today during nap time and taught me some fun stitches. She is the master of beautiful pillow case embroidery, among many other wonderful projects. I'm so glad she came over because even the simplest stitches I improved by leaps and bounds in my attempts of making them look good. Yay! :)

Here is what she did:

I may or may not have taken a not so great picture on purpose, or not. :) I'm not telling.
...but even with a bad picture her stitching is still WAY better than mine. 

Here is what I did:

some of it definitely needs more work, but I think I didn't do too bad. 

I'm hoping to get some good practice and ideas for embroidering a little Summersville for my key fob for the RATZ Swap! :)

now to decide on which square to use. All of the designs are so wonderful! :)