February Lesson: Thread & Giveaway Results

Just to recap that the February lesson on Thread is posted here.

Congratulations to Lynn from Nebraska Views - I hope she has lots of fun with those variegated threads. Lynn's name was picked out by the ever trusty online random number selector.

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I just wanted to briefly list all the different threads that people talked about. If there are some brands here you have not heard of - try them - they might surprise you. I list in order of popularity:

Aurifil
Don't forget that Aurifil have threads in lots of different weights of cotton that you can experiment with. I suspect people don't know that they also have a poly made for longarm machines as well as a 100% nylon thread. You can read more about their products here. http://www.aurifil.com/

Rainbows and a Blooming Nine Patch

I understand that the blooming Nine Patch Quilt Pattern is an easy pattern to accomplish - but one that looks utterly beautiful. Well the next quilt in the pile from Andrea just brought rays of sunshine and spring to my world.

My new years resolution was to be braver with color. I meant this more of being brave with my thread colors when quilting as I have typically only used white or invisible threads in my early quilts.

Andrea's quilts are so full of color - I wanted to take a serious plunge into color. I decided to use Rainbows thread by Superior. These are an absolutely stunning selection of threads. They have a color change every 1 inch. I do have the Superior color charts at home so I was able to select threads that blended perfectly. The actual colors of the thread do differ from the photos online quite a bit - so the color charts are well worth their small investment. 

I did a swirly feathered medallion design in the middle. 

From the edges in I started with a sepertine line on the purple border ... into feathers ....

... into flowers & leaves ...

... did I mention how well then beautiful thread blended? ...

.... some more serpentine lines before merging into the feather medallion in the center.

When the sun shone on the quilt the glorious texture was revealed. 

Who needs a flower bed when you have this hanging in your garden?

The quilting process wasn't about its problems. Though I loved this thread and the ending result - it was really hard to use on Freddie. It kept breaking - so the initial progress was very frustrating. It led me on a crazy Google internet search into the thread to find tips on how to handle it (what did we do before Google?). This is how I handled the thread:

Tips on using Rainbow threads on your Handiquilter
- Increased my needle up to a 20 needle
- Loosen the tension on the top & on the bobbin case (Not too much though - I really spent some time playing with the tension to get it right - like 1/2 a day.......)
- Thoroughly cleaned, air dusted & oiled the machine
- I soaked the thread in water (yes - literally held it under a tap for a while) the water really seemed to help
- Don't go too fast

I feel like the thread frustration was worth the result in this case. I really hope that I get up the energy to use this thread again in future - it is SO beautiful even if it was initially a bit problematic.