And Another Christmas Table Runner

Finished my second Christmas table runner displayed here as a festive wall hanging (easier to photograph that way).

Had some fun with this...tried out Aurifil Monofilament thread to do all the outlining and ditching for this one. Worked well, but I must say that I find Aurifil Monofilament thread slightly more finicky than the Superior Monopoly thread. It's just so fine and very hard to see. A couple of times I felt as if I was stitching literally completely blind.

Looks very nice though as it is literally invisible.

Also did a pieced backing for this one as I had some coordinating fabric left. That's where the fun started...I had to align it so perfectly to frame the main winter scene on both sides...I cannot believe that that actually worked. The stars must have been aligned! If I had just made the center a fraction smaller I would have had it 100% perfect, however I was just really happy that it was nice and straight.

This one is also up in my Etsy shop for sale if you want to see more detailed photos of that.

That's it for me with the Christmas table runners. Just have to finish mine now and then there are three snowmen left, but I will leave that for a bit of a side project for next year to use up all of that panel.

Karin

Another Little Project

I am really into 'clean up' mode lately. Found leftovers of a pastel quilt I made the year before last out of a Fat Quarter bundle called Foxglove Gardens by Leanne Beasley for Ella Blue fabrics. I made a baby quilt out of that with pretty pink birds on top...even used some of the Fat Quarters for a pieced backing and still had heaps of fabric left. So I cut myself a Charm Square stack and just sewed them together (still got fabric left!).

Colours look a bit dodgy in this photo...it does look better in real life.

Further trialled the Aurifil Monofilament thread for the ditch work...yep, no issues, performed very well for me. Did not break or do anything else weird, just easy sewing. Had my tension very low as before and used a simple thread net. For the bobbin I used Aurifil 50/2 thread. I am using a wool/poly batting so the squares puffed up nicely.

Today I finished the ditching and started on the ruler work. I am using Lisa Calle's Pro Echo ruler #12 for a bit of practice. It is a rather large ruler and initially I struggled to hold it tight. In fact, I realised that I have to stop half way down the curve to re-position my hands otherwise I loose the grip on the ruler ever so slightly and have inaccuracies on the point. While I sort of knew this I was initially being lazy and trying to go down the curve in one go...yep, definitely needed to slow down and re-position my hands as the ruler just gently slides sideways.

Love doing curves and absolutely love Lisa Calle's rulers. Might have to invest in the #10 one...might be easier to hold on a sit down machine. I initially bought #12 and #8 and given I loved them so much then invested in the small Pro Echo set (which goes up to #7), so I am missing a few curves in between. Use these curves all the time, particularly the smaller ones.

Not sure yet exactly where this is going to go in terms of quilting. The idea originally was to just do a simple line design over it and be done with it...we'll see where this will take me.

Karin

Playing With Aurifil Monofilament Thread

Today I trialed Aurifil Monofilament thread. This is the first time that I have used this super fine, invisible nylon thread.

First of all, the cone is huge!

It comes with a thread 'sock' rather than a net. I was unsure whether to remove that, but here it is...a word of warning! Be extremely careful when you remove it because the thread instantly untangles from the cone and gives you a bit of a mess. There is nothing you can do other than to unwrap it to the point where you only have one thread hanging off. Of course, I did that!

I did try it initially with the thread sock but found that it was just so tight. It seemed to stitch fine, but I felt it was just too tight from above...the sound of the stitching just was not right. That's when I took the sock off and put a normal thread net on. This felt much better, the thread was looser and it sounded alright. The Aurifil Monofilament thread is a nylon thread whereas the Superior Monopoly thread that I usually use is a polyester thread. Did I notice the difference? They are both super fine threads. The only thing that I felt was that the nylon thread appeared to be more stretchy when it was coming off the tight thread sock and you could feel and see that.

In terms of settings it was not too difficult. I had my tension set really low (0.75) with an Aurifil 50/2 thread in the bobbin. I did not change my needle even though I read somewhere that this performs best with a 90/14 Topstitch or a 100/16 Universal. I had a 75/11 Quilting needle in there and had no problems.

So, I thought I do something useful and stitch out Natalia Bonner's February block as a bit of a practice exercise because I had a block left over that had gone wrong.

You can see the thread sock in the left corner...very tightly woven material. 

I had no problems stitching with the thread...no skipped stitches or broken thread...it just stitched very nicely. I later did adjust my bobbin tension a bit and made that a bit looser and also trialed the thread sock again. Definitely too tight for me with that thread sock, although I did notice that it was better when I rolled the sock down a bit. May need to ask somebody about this. It is no big deal to change over to the thread net other than - if unprepared, you are risking a thread mess and a bit of wastage of thread, but if you are careful, it is preventable.

Looking at my sample though I did notice one big difference...this is the first time that I thought that I should have chosen a thread like this for my Natalia Bonner quilt. The quilting looks lovely. I thought that the thread sinks in better than others and gives you this very refined look (which would have been ideal on the dark/light colour combo). The thread itself is shiny and you can see this under the light of the machine obviously, it was only afterwards when I looked at the completed block that I thought that this would be perfect if you wanted to do some almost invisible background quilting on a quilt where only the texture would be a feature (also really good for scrap quilts). I will keep this sample to compare next time I stitch with Monopoly thread to see whether I am not just imagining things, but I was really taken aback a bit when it was finished. It looks absolutely flawless and this would have been the first time that I thought about using invisible thread for something other than stitching-in-the-ditch.

As you can see I did all sorts of things on my block, which are not all part of Natalia's instructions for this block, but I thought I may as well give the thread a bit of a workout. I did some ruler work, pebbles, feathers swirls...I used Manual as well as Regulated mode and went pretty fast and sloppy at times. In the back of my mind I thought that the thread would get stuck on the thread net or sock, but nothing...it just kept going, so overall was very reliable. 

Would be good to hear whether somebody has used this and how they managed the thread sock. 

Karin