Another Gorgeous Day

It is a freakish "spring" here in the northeast. Some years, it seems as though spring has not come until late May or early June. This year, we have had more days that have hit 50F in February and March. It is already 60F today. I'm not sure I can quilt this afternoon with temps like this. Because I am nearly finished with this quilt...maybe another 3-4 hours of finish-up work, I envisioned not having more sneak peeks until it came off the frame. But I am dallying today, so here's a looksee of the center, albeit the red part is not completed.

Ok, and another look at the quilting on the body of the quilt. There's no shortage of cross-hatching and feathers.
I got a special delivery a while ago... Ever wonder what $500 in thread looks like??...
Here it is! Last May I won $1000 in thread from Wonderfil at MQS. I had never used their thread before then, and had only heard of Invisifil, a 100wt very fine thread. I have used that thread a good bit, but only dabbled with their others. Last week I decided to cash in on the last $500 of that gift certificate. I got 15 cones of their Machine Quilter thread (40wt poly), 5 cones of a 50wt cotton that I will likely sell since I don't use cotton hardly ever, 4 cones of a nice metallic, and a few of this and that. The thread is rather pricey compared to Glide, YLI Professional, and most of Superior's (at wholesale prices) - it comes from Canada. I plan to try out the 40wt poly on my next quilt.
And here is a little sampling of another quilt coming up for next year... I am making another broken/carpenter's star. It is all in water colors. The appliqued butterflies are perhaps a tad dramatic, if not unexpected, but they will be that pop of color that will be needed. I am currently designing the setting squares for the next round - there are 16 of them! I have fabrics for the diamonds, but who the heck knows when I will have time to get them pieced (summer???).

Thread Review

Earlier this month before I left on vacation, I quilted several quilts. In this time, I was able to test out a couple of threads that are new to my repetoire. Typically, I sew most of the time with Superior's So Fine thread on the top and their Bottomline or SoFine in the bobbin. This combination works without breaks and issues. At MQX in April, I received a cone of Superior's Omni 40wt poly thread. I finally had a quilt that seemed perfect to try it out on.
This is one of Andrea's wedding quilts, one of 13 that are being given to her attendents next weekend. Thank goodness for her it is next weekend, as we are all awaiting the arrival of Irene tomorrow! The thread is strong, very suitable for pantographs and all-over quilting designs. In my opinion, it is too heavy for detail work, but good for many other places. I have a cone of tan, so the color was right here too. The thread has little sheen, like some other poly threads, but looks good, and ran without so much as a break. It required an 18 needle, so I did stock up on these at the World Quilt Show 2 weeks ago, and plan to order a few cones of the Omni with my next Superior order. It's run with Bottomline in the bobbin. Oh, and the best part is that it comes in 6000yd cones, 172 colors and has a price of $7.70 for the business owner ($12 for everyone else).

The other thread I stitched with for the first time is Wonderfil's Tutti, 50wt cotton thread. I got a cone of green last month with my MQS gift certificate, and figured I'd just test it out, along with several other threads to see what I want to buy with the remaining $700 of the award. Seriously...how much thread can one person buy?>?! I ran this thread with a matching So Fine in the bobbin. I seldomly quilt with cotton thread because it generates so much lint, but this was relatively low lint as cottons go. It is a fairly fine thread too, and looks nice as a panto.

I think I stitched with an 18 needle as well. I did have 5-6 thread breaks, which are annoying and slightly disruptive, but I'd be inclined to get a few cones of this thread too for E2E work. It runs $28 for 3000m - more expensive than most other comparative cotton threads, but since mine will be essentially "free", I will likely get some.

(above...another of Andrea's wedding quilts. Look at all those geese!)

Thread Testing

Nearly 2 months ago, I bought a cone of Essential PRO thread from Connecting Threads. I have bought their cotton thread back right after I got my longarm. I call this back in my "I didn't know any better" days. It was before I knew that cotton was messy and linty. Before I knew it would break much more often than polyester. Before I knew that it was too thick to possibly look good for detailed quilting. None the less, it was inexpensive at Connecting Threads, and I stocked up on many colors. I quickly learned that I liked the Superior SoFine thread SOOO much better, bought hundreds of dollars of it and tossed the troublesome cotton aside. It actually was all sold (aka given away) at a garage sale last May.

In December, I learned that they were now selling a 60wt polyester thread for only $5.99. I figured that this would be good to try, so I bought one cone, not 12. Lessons learned. I just got around to testing the thread today. I actually had been awaiting a quilt that needed ivory (and as you know, I have been kinda bogged down on some ridiculous Italian quilt for a month anyways!). I occasionally use Superior's Bottomline 60wt in my bobbin, but have never used that weight on the topside. I went into the test skeptical, but I am happy to report that this inexpensive thread works splendidly! Look see...
I am halfway through a client quilt. I have not had a break or thread nest or anything unsightly. I am using Superior prewound Bottomline bobbins (only because they are simple and I happen to have ivory!). The thread tensioned just fine and it seems to sew basically like a So Fine.

The best thing though is that it is much cheaper. Sorry, Superior...I do love that thread, but for more basic colors that I use a lot, it is nice to have a cost saving alternative when everything else (ie., cotton) is increasing in cost. I happen to buy from Superior at wholesale prices, which are 40% less than their website retail costs. As a comparison, the Essential PRO gives you 553 yards per $, in comparison to the SoFine at 330 yards/$ and the Bottomline at 400 yards/$. I won't put the retail comparison because it is obviously a better deal if you are a wholesale customer, so for those that do not run a business, the cost benefit is even greater. Hugely greater. This would be an ideal thread for piecing. Think about that - How much is a 500yard spool of thread??...$3-4? You can get 3300yards for only $6. If you spend $50 at Connecting Threads, the shipping is free. I usually spend $8 (though retail/non-wholesale shipping is $3.95) at Superior for a $100 order.

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Drawbacks??...sure, there are always drawbacks. SoFine comes in a plethera of colors - 135 to be exact. Bottomline comes in nearly 60 colors. Unfortunately, the Essential PRO comes in only 30 colors, but they are fairly commonly used shades so I think that I'd use many of them often.

I don't get a cut back from the store for this review. I just thought that it is good information that quilters, whether longarm or domestic could benefit from. So, go shopping! Spend what you save on thread on something fun to pamper yourself with.

Taming the thread demons

Our Veteran's Day was spent mostly taming the massive amounts of leaves which last Sunday's storm dropped all over everywhere. In most years, the leaves are only on the back yard, where the trees are. This year they were in the front, side and back. 5 straight hours of raking and blowing and cursing. My hands are killing me today, all cut up and blistered. I had to clip back all the flower gardens in order to get the leaves out of the gardens. I had hoped that my mom might come out yesterday and bring the 2nd leaf blower. As soon as she found out my husband did not have to work, that plan seemed to change. Go figure, she thought bringing it today would be just as useful! Good grief. I can use my own leaf blower today...I was hoping to avoid having to rake!
I figured that being outside for several hours would make my kids crash in the afternoon. It sure did make me want a nap! My 4 year old had to get into plenty of naptime mischief (nearly 2 hours of it!) before she crashed. What you cannot see is the multitude of things she crashed on top of. She managed to change out of her clothes into her jammies -- somehting she's done a lot lately. There are 3 books beneath her. Two quilts, a blanket and an afghan. There is a giant stuffed lamb, three baby dolls and their clothes. A bear, a few barrettes, and a dress. My list likely goes on, but I didn't want to move her to take this picture. Lisa (AKA miniature quilture) ought to get a kick out of the fact that she's sleeping with her "backpack"...the purse that goes with a dress she sent Sophie this springtime! Too funny.

So, while everyone else was getting a good rest, I had to conquer this beast. It is huge, 124"x103". And as you can see, when loaded the longway, goes clear across my machine. I have only quilted one other quilt that was this wide. I know to fear huge quilts! If they are not perfectly square, the issues can magnify quickly.

This quilt is prolifically floral and very bright. Thread and quilting pattern selection were a little tricky because of the many colors and patterns already in play. The backing is a sea green floral. It is a little bit unexcpected since the fabric does not appear on the top, nor does the seagreen color, so this played into thread choices as well.
Here's the backing. OK, maybe it is more of a mint green. Whatever.
What I chose to quilt was the very leafy pattern below called Woodlands. This is the first time I have used this pattern, and I was hoping that I would not really hate doing it since there is so very much of it, nearly 12800 square inches! I really wanted to steer clear of anything blatantly floral. It is already busy enough in the flower department.

The other thing I did on this quilt was tame one of the myths about thread which some longarmers have. Some quilters really think that their machine can only quilt one kind of thread. I read things like "my machine only likes King Tut", and "I cannot quilt with cottons" all the time. I gotta admit. I have fallen into the trap of preferring one thread more than others, but mostly just don't take the time to fiddle with tensions sufficiently to get others equally as comfortable. Yesterday was that day. I had this YLI 50wt variagated brown thread and a mostly coordinating YLI 40 wt cotton for the backing. I have used the solid thread for a quilt some months ago with not too much trouble, but the variagated gave me huge fits on a quilt recently so I picked it all out and nearly threw it away. You see, these threads were a gift from YLI after MQX last spring. Free thread, how fun is that! These threads were a very nice choice for this quilt, also somewhat taming the overuse of flowers, so I wanted to use it.

I am most happy to say that it has been perfectly fine. I have had not even one thread break, and tension is good!! Yea, yea - delight.

I'll leave you with a few statistics of this quilt...

~It will require ~19 rows of the panto

~Each row takes about 15 minutes to stitch

~Each row is 12700 stitches (you do the final math!)

~Every four rows is about 21"

~I change bobbins 3 times for every 4 rows (sigh!)

Yes, it does beckon the question of will I have enough thread, doesn't it!