Thread

I used to sew with any kind of thread I could find on sale.

But then I found that when sewing tiny pieces for miniature quilts, the piecing was more accurate with a thinner thread. By trial and error, I found that Aurifil thread makes the best seam.
Plus my Brother sewing machine LOVES machine quilting at high speeds (oh wait...maybe it's me that loves it!) and it does a great stitch with Aurifil. Believe me, I tried many other threads that my machine chewed up and spit out.


I recently ordered a box of neutral Aurifil for piecing from Tristan threads and I immediately wound up 6 bobbins. Wonder how many seams I can sew with these bobbins? And I wonder how long this box of thread will last?!?

Thread Organization

I just had to write my third blog post of the day!  I am house bound today since my puppy had surgery this week for an eye tumour, and I am chief canine nurse (don't all mothers end up being 100% responsible for the care of the dog that the children beg to get and promise to take care of!?!) In between dog duties, I am surfing quilt blogs, and doing some hand work (for tomorrow's Slow Stitching blogpost).
When visiting Connie's blog today, I saw the photos of her thread organization - click here to see her thread, and enjoy the eye candy on her quilty post. I discovered that there is a linky party at Sew Many Ways showing many wonderful ideas for thread storage. 
I am slightly very embarrassed to show you my "thread storage system"...
here it is!
I think I have a problem! I try to limit myself to buying no more thread than can fit in this bin. But I'd be a lot happier with any of the set ups I've seen on this linky party than this mess!
Here is where I store my thread snips - you don't throw yours away, do you?!?!
 And here is my sophisticated method of storing my empty spools of thread!
Now you should go and see how quilters properly store their thread - linky party is here.

Busy Hands Guild Mini Quilt Workshop

The weather turned quite cold here, with frost overnight, and a high of 3 degrees today. The daffodils are laying on the ground this morning wondering what the heck happened!!
And what better activity to do on a cold spring day than quilting?!?!  I taught a mini quiltmaking workshop for the Busy Hands Quilt Guild and it was a fun day with some very creative quilters! Here are some of the students showing the mini quilt projects they started...

I have had a couple of email questions recently about mini quilting details, so thought I would answer them in this blogpost.  I have no affiliation to any of the mentioned products, just my personal preferences which are subject to change at any minute, if I find something I like better LOL :

-thread: I prefer Aurifil, but sometimes will use Mettler Silk Finish to get the right colour. Yep...I use a LOT of Aurifil! Now what am I going to do with all these saved spools people have asked me?? I might make something, maybe a Christmas wreath from them? Or not...it's hard to say what I might do!!

-batting: I use Warm & Natural since I like 100% cotton, it always lays flat and has a nice weight that I prefer. However, it is only good for machine quilting (hand quilting through W & N is way too tough for me). I buy it by the bolt for large quilts and use the excess side trimmings for mini quilts.

-quilting: the easiest finish is a quick "stitch-in-the-ditch", but it's boring to do so I prefer a free motion design most of the time these days. You can see how tiny my quilting is on this piece where the "coins" average about 3/8".

-embellishing: I love to do beading on quilts, but usually only bead the quilts that insist on it, or quilts that I dislike and think that the beading will help me to like it more! I usually use Nymo thread to attach beads or embellishments.

-binding: I prefer a double fold binding cut at 2.25" but will do a single layer binding if I am running out of fabric.

Machine Quilting

I have been machine quilting my January UFO this week (yippee for me not leaving it to the last minute!) and it has gone really well (photos to come soon)...except for problems with the thread. I am using up a spool of Wonderfil Konfetti thread, which you see on my machine here.
Not once, but TWICE, there has been a knot in the thread coming off the spool...as in 2 ends of thread tied together!!! I am machine quilting at a high rate of speed and the first knot snapped my needle in half and scared the living daylights out of me! When the knot got to the eye of the needle and couldn't get through the eye, something had to give! 

The second time I saw a knot coming off the spool, I said some not nice words and was able to stop in time to take a photo! Can you see the knot in the thread there?!? That will not go through a quilting needle! So I have to catch it in time, stop quilting, cut the threads, rethread the machine/needle and start quilting again....or else risk breaking another needle....yikes! I have never had this happen with my beloved Aurifil thread (no affiliation, just a very happy customer!).
I have been thinking about signing up for the 2012 Free Motion Quilting Challenge to practice some new quilting designs. And lest you think that I am out of control with signing up for blogland quilting events, mysteries, sew alongs, etc. go visit Linda's blog and read her posts on some of the quilty fun currently available and FREE to all of us - part 1 and part 2. And you will see how many wonderful projects I have resisted...patting myself on the back over here!
For a very inspiring blogpost on "Quilting Without Fear" (not including when the thread you are using has knots in it that snap your needle in half!!) hop over to the Free Motion Quilting Project. Leah also has a quilt along happening weekly, but I know for sure I can't keep up with that frequency. 

Empty Spools

At the beginning of last year I wrote a blog entry about using up threads - click here. I have continued my "thread busting" practise by only buying new threads once I have thoroughly checked my thread box and found nothing that will work for the project.
I am binding a quilt right now (one of my favorite things!) and plan to finish up these 2 old spools of Mettler thread.  Looking at my thread box today, I would estimate that I have approximately half the thread spools I had at the beginning of 2010! I gave away the threads that my machine didn't like, and I used up the spools with little bits left.
As a result of my thread busting efforts, I have a new problem...a large collection of empty spools.
This was my old, overflowing container for empty spools,  and I am wondering...why am I saving these? 
I have acquired a couple more spool containers and looking at these spools I feel some pride at using up all those bits of threads,  but also feel a bit shocked at the amount of money I have spent on thread...each of those orange Aurifil thread spools cost $10!
What possible use could these empty spools have?
Help me out here blog readers... should I save these old spools? And if so, what purpose could they serve?

First finish for 2010!

In addition to using up stash fabric this year (especially in pieced quilt backings - see the backing for this quilt here), I want to use up old spools of thread. When quilting a piece this large in the past, I would have gone to Triangle Sewing and picked out thread specifically matched to the project, and usually buy extra so that I would never run out.
However, this year I am going to use up spools that I already have....the year of "threadbusting"!  I used to worry about having enough thread to quilt the entire piece with the SAME colour. I'm over that now, since I have a large stash of partially used spools that need to be emptied, and since I realized that most people cannot tell that I have used 4 different shades of teal thread in this quilt!
I started with these 3 spools and quickly used them up.
Here is one of the spools dangling from the thread feeder on my sewing machine...time for another spool!
I had a great time with this quilting. Some people really dislike machine quilting, but I love it almost as much as the piecing (and sometimes more). I decided to quilt this disappearing 9 patch in straight lines, making it completely different from the pink and purple polka dot disappearing 9 patch that I made last year (click here to see it) which I quilted with wavy lines and circles.

Above is a picture of quilting straight lines across the diagonal of the blocks using my walking foot.

I also practised quilting straight lines using my free motion foot in these white diamonds. It was a lot of starting and stopping (as opposed to continuous line quilting) and it required focus and concentration, but I was happy with the results.

Here is a picture of how the blocks were quilted.


And...drum roll please...
here is my first finished quilt of 2010...
the red and aqua disappearing 9 patch!
Thanks to Jane for hosting the block swap in November and to those quilters who contributed blocks for my quilt!

Fun With Quilting Threads

It has been a cold and wintery weekend here...perfect quilting weather! I have been quilting my "tessellating stars" quilt that I made in a class with Cindy Thury Smith last fall. It was a fun quilt to piece and has been fun to quilt. It is just the kind of quilt I like to make...scrappy with lots of bright colours. When I am machine quilting, I like to change thread colours frequently.Here is a photo of auditioning threads for the swirly design that I quilted in each star. In this quilt there are 18 full stars (each made from a different fabric) and 14 partial stars (there were some fabrics repeated on the edges), so that could potentially be 32 thread changes! Some quilters find it frustrating to have frequent thread changes, but I enjoy it.
Back to finish the quilting...I'll post a photo of the finished quilt when the binding is on...I'm using a lime green and yellow striped fabric for the binding!

UFO of the Month

I am making progress on my UFO of this month. I went to the Centre for the Arts on "open studio" night and used their large tables to baste two quilts. This sure beats crawling around on the floor for basting...only did that once and learned my lesson! I am using a new thread from Sulky, which is thicker than I am used to. It is a 12 wt. thread and I had to do quite a bit of adjusting of the tension to get it workable. The thread has only snapped three times, when I was free motion quilting at a high rate of speed! I used to have a great deal of difficulty finishing quilts because I either had to send them out for quilting, or wait for inspiration to strike with ideas for quilting. I was tired of stitching in the ditch but didn't know what else to do and so the UFO tops piled up. Then I took a Quilt University www.quiltuniversity.com class with Myrna Geisbrecht and learned how to overcome creativity blocks. Now I usually start the quilting by stitching in the ditch in a grid format to stabilize the whole quilt. Then I start free motion quilting in whatever design comes to my mind while I'm quilting. Sometimes I really like the outcome and sometimes I don't, but at least the quilt gets finished and isn't sitting in a cupboard. This quilt is a design by Debby Kaffunger and was going to be donated to the comfort quilt charity at my quilt guild, but my daughter loved the fabric so I made the larger size quilt and, of course, ran out of fabric! I will have to go shopping for more fabric for the binding, and hope there is something still available that matches these fabrics.