Slow Sunday Stitching: Let the Hand Work Series Begin!

As noted in my last post, I am currently machine-less.  This actually happened at a good time since I had planned to start a big hand work project for New Year's and had a few projects that I had planned to finish this year that are easily adapted to hand work. 

Considering that I got into quilting because it could be done completely by machine, over the years after admiring all the beautiful hand work done by many quilters, I've been slowly learning and adopting hand work techniques like hand applique and hand quilting.  Now I get to add another one:  hand piecing! 

Back in October I started doing Pam Buda's most recent Pocket Patchwork Sew Along called "Tucker".  I still had a lot of Civil War scraps from past projects and thought it a good project for putting some of them to use. 

After decorating for the holidays, I also realized I had the perfect place to display it (see Pam's explanation for why the project is called "Tucker" in her reveal post).  This would have been a quick turnaround by machine but when my machines became unavailable, I realized this little project could still be finished if I chose to hand piece it.  Even better, this little quilt isn't meant to be quilted (although you can if you want to) just backed and bound so that simplifies the handwork even further. 

Fortunately for once when I wanted to sit down and stitch, I had a day free of outside obligations so didn't have problems getting to it.  So while watching today's NY Jets football game, I've managed to get this much done so far:

  
Since this is the first time I'm doing piecing by hand,  I of course went to the Internet to see what advice was out there for what I expect to be a bit of a learning curve.  The first source was the queen of hand piecing, Jinny Beyer.  She has a whole section of her website that provides "Tips and Lessons" for various aspects of hand piecing. 

The other most helpful blog was one that hasn't been updated recently but had two really useful tips on it.  Chris aka "Crispy Quilts" hosts the blog "Hand Piecing With Crispy".  On it she had a great post showing how to make a "No Knot Knot" and I found her instructions on sewing seamed intersections very clear.

At this point, I'll be breaking for dinner and will go back to stitching while watching some of our favorite evening shows.  Hopefully, there will be a finish update by next week!

Linking up over at Kathy's Quilts on this week's (the last of the year) Slow Sunday Stitching post.