Making a little progress

Okay, the hoop and stand idea may have been a good one, but I am sure that whoever came up with it used a much more durable stand. The hoop is fine, but the stand is a rickety mess. Hubby laughed at me trying to chase it and still stitch at the same time.

So, I reverted back to the small lap stand that I used when I took my class, many, many moons ago. It works really well and it is comfortable to use, even though the weight of the quilt is cumbersome at times. But, I think my stitches are improving a bit where my foundation isn't so wobbly.

Last night, I pulled off loads of the painter's tape so I could really see the completed stitches (I left the tape on where I haven't stitched yet). With the tape out of the way, it didn't seem as jarring to the eye when I looked at my stitches. I could see that I was really making progress and that felt pretty good, especially when I am used to working on quick machine based projects. Maybe this won't be too bad after all. When I am done quilting all of these lines, I will re-mark and do the hatch marks in the other direction.

Right now, I am using 1 inch painters tape to mark off diagonal lines in around 3 inch intervals. I will do the intersecting lines at the same intervals. I hope that this will give some visual interest and not be too boring a configuration. We'll see. If I hate it, I can always keep adding more lines, I guess.

I just hope I won't be still quilting it on December 23rd!