Hand quiting progress

I'm doing well so far with my goal to make time for what I love this year.  I enjoy the quiet rhythm of hand quilting in the evenings, but in the last year I have let that pleasure slide to the bottom of my "to do" list.  Not anymore!  I am making a conscious effort to stop whatever I'm doing about an hour before bedtime and sit with my quilting.

Quilting Chic Country

This quilt top was finished last February. I finally decided how to quilt it in early spring, discovered my arms were not long enough to quilt with at the distance my eyes could focus,  finally gave in and got progressive lenses for my glasses and promptly decided it was too hot to sit with a quilt in my lap during the summer.  I don't know what my excuse was for neglecting this quilt in the fall, but I finally started working on it again and I can finally see the larger design starting to emerge.

Starting to see the larger picture in the quilting

I really am enjoying my evening quilting sessions.  It surprises me (though perhaps it shouldn't) how tuning out everything else for a little bit of quiet time before bed is helping me fall asleep more easily.

Just in case I start getting discouraged at the pace of my progress, I have printed out a line drawing of the quilt and am colouring it as the quilt gets quilted.  That was motivating and encouraging when I quilted Whimsy and my son's kaleidoscope (still unnamed!) quilt. Here's the progress so far.  If I commit to an average of quilting half a block each day, I can have this done before summer.  Let's see how I do! I missed one day already in favour of family time, but that's certainly a valid excuse, well in line with good mental health goals!

Linking up with

Sunday Slow Stitching at Kathy's quilts