To Auriful or to not Aurifil...

2012 was a year of quilting discoveries.... one of them was of the importance of thread.

I will admit I have been a long time quilter, but never given thread a second thought - I thought they were all the same.... I know!

Then I started Katy's Hexy MF quilt along in the summer and she listed Aurifil as her thread of choice.

Katy, if you don't know her, is an amazing quilter and oracle of information about quilting, so if she says this thread rocks then you HAVE to go and check it out!

At first the price knocked me out... I thought, really? That is crazy!

But I invested in some aluminium as she suggested and started hand piecing my hexagons....

I discovered the thread is incredibly flexible and the 1300m goes a very long way... I mean a very long way!

You can hand piece, machine quilt and machine stitch - all with one thread!

I now have a small collection of threads, that I am adding to slowly as I need and I don't even look at my box of polyester threads... which brings me to the dilemna I now face..

Do I use Aurifil in my classes?

Up until now I have kept my supply for my use and private students, but I feel like I am holding out on my other learners...

Should I introduce them to the joys of using Aurifil?

I guess the middle road is to use Aurifil and my polyester threads until they are all gone....

Quilting a large quilt

Over the last few weeks I have been working on a quilt for a very dear friend. It has been a mammoth task as isn't finished yet!

It started as bundle of fat quarters from Tula Pink:

Which were matched with Kona cream and snowball shapes made:

Which grew to a design with squares:

 

 

Which came together quickly into a queen size quilt:

 



 



When it was completely finished I basted it on the living room floor with a little helps from a sleep walking friend!

 

 

For the last 5 weeks I have been quilting it whenever I can! I decided on a tight design of sun ray in the octagons and swirls in the cream - lots of work! I have been using So Fine thread from Superior as recommended by Angela Walters.

 

 

 

I thought I would share what I have learnt about quilting such a large quilt on a domestic machine:

• It is best to break the quilt down into sections and concentrate on that one section before moving on to the next. This means I quilt the octagon in Thistle and then put in all the swirls around it, before I quilt the next octagon.

• I adapted by free motion foot as suggested by Leah Day which has made quilting much easier - the foot no longer bounces around!

• The reel of So fine suggests using a top stitch needle size 80/12. I have personally found that some quilting needles of the same size work the best. I guess they are pretty similar, but my lovely Ellie the Elna didn't like the top stitch needle at all.

• When working on a section you have be conscious of the backing creasing, so I start a new section working out from the quilted area rather than working towards it!

 

 

 

Finally I learnt you need patience! This is not something that will happen overnight and I have grown very attached to this quilt. It will be hard to let it go!



Do as I say, not as I do!

On Tuesday during my class in Gloucester one of the learners bought along a length of stretch, leopard print material. She had been asked to make a skirt with it.....

During the first lesson a fortnight earlier she had been introduced to an electric machine for the first time, previously she had sewn using a hand crank. At home she had taken her new electric machine out of it's box and made her son some cushions for his flat. This had prompted her friend to ask for a skirt.

So we sat discussing the design, how to cut the fabric and how she wanted to construct the skirt. She planned everything on paper, including drawings of the finished skirt.  I had taken along this fabulous book:

It has everything a new sewer and experienced sewer needs to know about using a sewing machine!

She sat for 20 minutes reading the book, making notes and before I approached again to talk about getting started. I showed the page that explains needles and how you need different needles for different jobs - we are going to need stretch needles for this skirt. the next question was, what happens if you use the wrong needle?

I explained that the machine skips stitches, puckers and generally gets upset. I talked about leather needles, using size 90 for sewing PUL...

Then it dawned on me - I hadn't been using my own advice. When I had attempted machine applique, free motion quilting and machine embroidery I had always left the same old needle in. Just any old needle... but my tension never seems right, the machine missed stitches...

When I was researching Aurifil threads, it said that 50/2 needed a Top Stitch Needle for quilting. I bought some and they have solved all of my problems when doing any kind of quilting or applique!

If I had used my own advice I could have saved myself a whole lot of frustration and started machine quilting a very long time ago!

New sewing finds....

I am always looking for new supplies and ideas for my quilting/sewing.

As you know I started my first quilt along with Fat Quarterly blog, which has been fabulous. Not only have I learnt a new sewing technique of English Paper Piecing, I have also tried out loads of fantastic new products.

Katy from I'm A Ginger Monkey and co-founder of Fat Quarterly, made some suggestions for supplies that I hadn't encountered before - some of them I will be using from now on!

Aurifil 50/2 thread was suggested as great thread for the hand stitching. It was a thread I hadn't heard of. I bought a neutral colour for my Hexy MF quilts. It has been a joy to sew with!  Since then I have ordered 6 different colours for my studio - they piece, quilt and hand stitch! They are sublime!



I ordered mine from Quilt Direct, who were super fast in getting the threads out and they have a superb range of threads to choose from!

Another tip I picked up was using bees wax to coat the thread when I am hand sewing so that is less likely to knot. I got mine from the Eclectic Maker, which is also a new website to me!

It has meant that my thread no longer breaks and there are far fewer knots than before. I really recommend it if you are hand sewing. I have even used it when basting a couple of quilts - I am old school and hand bast my quilts...

I hope you find my discoveries helpful!