Surprising Favorite

My favorite color to use for quilting on bright quilts seems to be this lime green. I think I've used more lime green thread than another other color on my quilts. It's amazing how many quilts look good with this thread. I'm getting down to the end of this second cone and have a third one ready when needed. I don't think I've finished two cones of any other color, or even come close.

Fiber Fun Complete!

Here's the completed project that I've been blogging about all week....

I used a zigzag stitch to sew the yarn down on wash-away stabilizer, making a grid by sewing eight long rows down and then the shorter rows across. I left a bit of yarn hanging off of the long ends of the stabilizer to make some fringe (not really visible in this photo). Once it was all sewn down ( it's a great way to use up thread), it went into a pan of water until all of the stabilizer dissolved. I kept rinsing it until I got all the stickiness and stiffness out.

This was very easy and fun to do and I love the result. There are so many gorgeous yarns available now and I've been very envious of my knitting friends who get to use that yarn. Well, now I can use it, too, without having to learn how to read a knitting pattern!

Excuses, Excuses

OK, some of you may remember that I not only changed my mind about a backing fabric for my Jane Stickle quilt, I also changed my mind about what thread to use in the quilting.

Here's a link to my post about my first thought about thread, and then a link to a post about changing my mind about the it.

This is it...no more changes allowed. I am going with the rainbow of colors and will take the time to change thread to match the individual blocks. Luckily, I have a wide variety of colors already in my So Fine thread stash, which means I can't use the excuse of not having any thread as a reason to delay starting the quilting.

But I can think of another excuse...I'm seeing some family members this weekend that I haven't seen in a couple of years, so I have to take my DJ top with me to show off. I may not see these people again for quite a while and since they are the type to appreciate the work I've put into the top, I need to delay the quilting for just one more short week....

I'm Allowed To Change My Mind, Right?

I have now finished the tablerunner that I was using as a practice piece before piecing my Jane Stickle quilt, and I think I'm changing my mind about what thread to use for the quilting.

My initial idea was to use monofilament thread on the top because of all of the different colors in the quilt, but now that I've quilted this piece that has the same basic colors/fabrics as my DJ quilt, I don't think it's good enough.

Don't get me wrong... the combination of MonoPoly on the top and Bottom Line in the bobbin worked just fine on my machine. And the quilting shows up well enough on the "plain" batiks...but it disappears on the batiks that have more color and design to them. I don't plan to do an overall quilting pattern on my DJ, but to quilt each block individually. And since I'm hoping that it will be my "magnum opus", I want everything to be right, not just good enough.

So that means that I have to go back to my original thought (and the suggestion made by several of my quilting friends)...that is, to quilt it using different colors of thread to match the individual blocks....and that means buying thread in every color of the rainbow....

And with all of the thread changes ahead, it will take a lot longer to finish.

Here's a shot of what the quilting looks like on the back. I was very pleased with the combination of threads.

Getting Ready

The thread for quilting my Jane Stickle quilt has arrived from Superior Threads. I plan to use MonoPoly on the top and either the cream or silver Bottom Line in the bobbin. I will test both out on a practice piece and decide which one works best with the Mono-Poly. I've used Superior Threads in most of my quilting, so I'm fairly confident that these will work, especially if I follow the guidelines on the website about tension and needle size.

Wish me luck!