
1. Get a Grip
Struggling to get a firm grasp on my needle is one of my top hand quilting frustrations. Fortunately, it's also one of the easiest to solve.
There are several grip-enhancing options available for purchase. You can buy a little rubber "grab-it" disc at your local quilt shop. I've used them, and they work quite well. You can also get a "rubber thumb" from an office supply store. I've used those, too. They work well enough, but can feel bulky and awkward. Finger cots, small balloons, or a fingertip cut from an old pair of dishwashing gloves also work, though they are not particularly durable.
My favorite needle-grabber is a rubber band. The best are the wide-ish ones used to secure bunches of asparagus or broccoli. (Another reason to eat your vegetables.) You probably have several floating around in a kitchen drawer.
These humble rubber bands have several advantages over the purchased options. For starters, they're readily available and free. If you lose one, no problem! Go back to that kitchen drawer and dig out another one. Unlike the rubber thumb, finger cot, or balloon, you don't have to wear it, so there's no interference with dexterity. Like the grab-it disc, it's easy to park it on the quilt's surface, but I prefer to loop it over my thumb to keep it handy.
Plus, they come in purple.
For quilting a border or sashing, it's not so dandy. Long, narrow sections stitch up quickly, so the hoop needs to be moved along often. Re-tensioning the quilt in the hoop with each move takes quite a bit a time. That's a bother.
The solution is to dispense with the top of the hoop. In narrow sections, where the quilting design doesn't require rotating the quilt, tensioning the hoop is not necessary. I just use a clothes pin to secure the quilt at the top of the hoop (as in the photo, above), and leave the rest loose. Re-positioning becomes a matter of sliding the bottom/inner hoop along and re-clipping the clothes pin.
3. Say No to the Knot
With big thread, you're going to make a big knot, which is going to make a big hole in your quilt top if you pop the knot through in the usual way,
The solution is to forego the knot, and leave a long thread tail hanging out at the start of each section of stitching. At the end of the line of quilting, you bury the thread tail in the batting, as usual, but with this important difference: leave the thread knot-free, and weave it back and forth between your last few stitches. Visualize the tip of your needle traveling a slalom course through the batting layer, with the stitches as the gates. Then you go back and do the same thing with the tail at the start of the stitching line.
OK, so that's all about Big Stitch quilting. For regular hand quilting, it's much simpler.
First, you knot your thread and pop it through at the start of stitching just like you always do. Then at the end, skip the knot and bury the tail in the batting, right up close alongside the last several stitches. Weave it between stitches once or twice if you can. Your normal quilting stitches are going to be tiny, so weaving through more than one or two of them will be difficult (and I would never suggest that you do something the hard way).
Don't worry that the thread won't stay buried; just make it long enough. If you've ever had the misfortune of having to pick out quilting stitches, you know that thread isn't going anywhere.
One more advantage to skipping the ending knot, is that you can continue to quilt closer to the end of the thread. That's a boon for those of us who are always trying to eke out just a few more stitches before re-threading the needle.
Do you have a favorite hand- quilting hack? Share it by leaving a comment below.