Machine Quilting With Tire Silk Thread

I purchased this Tire 50wt silk thread from Superior Threads.  It a beautiful shiny thread and is heavier than the YLI Silk which is a 100 wt.  I used a 14 quilting needle, Bernina BSR with stitch length 2.0 and the default tension of 4.0.  I don’t know what brand of batting is in this sample but again think it is some sort of cotton.

I love this thread, the shine in incredible and it paired up nicely with the Bottom Line thread from Superior Threads that I used in the bobbin.  The backtracking shows but doesn’t overpower the other stitching.  You do get a heavier line of quilting than with the 100 wt. silk threads so this would not blend into the background as easily as the lighter weight ones – if that is what you want.  It is a filament silk so is many long strands of silk fibers wound together.  No lint left in the machine from this thread.

I would definitely use this thread again but will consider the cost and how large the project is to be quilted.  Each of these 109 yard spools is $5.99 so the thread cost could be pretty high if you were quilting a large project.  You might want to try one of the trilobal threads to get the very shiny look of silk but pay a lower cost per yard of thread.

Lynn

Machine Quilting With Mettler Silk Finish Thread

I have lots of colors of this Mettler Silk Finish thread in my thread stash.  I have used it for general sewing of clothing and for hand applique but never tried it for machine quilting before now.  It is a 50 weight/3 ply thread that is 100% cotton.  I would say it is a medium weight thread with very little lint left in the machine.Other facts – Bernina stitch regulator (BSR), size #12 topstitch needle, 2.0 stitch length, 4.5 tension.  I did find that I should have adjusted the tension a bit tighter.  The batting in this sample is Fairfield 80 cotton/20 polyester.  

I have had good luck using this thread for hand applique and use it for piecing quilt blocks together and now can say I liked using it for machine quilting too.  The backtracking does build up and look a little heavier but it wasn’t a problem stitching through the multiple layers of thread.

I will use this thread again for machine quilting when I want a medium thread.

Lynn

Paducah Flowers

The dogwood trees were blooming this year in Paducah and they were so pretty. Friday evening we went for a walk when there was a lull in the rain showers that were happening most of the day. Enjoy looking at the photos I posted below.

We got our sheets laundered and the beds remade and said our goodbyes to Betty Jane this morning by 8 am. Since we all wake up early that works out great as we want to leave her home as neat and clean when we leave as it was when we came.  We did have to stop at Quilt. In A Day before we left town to see what the color of the day was so spent a little more of our money.

Every day all the venues of Quilt In A Day have one or more colors posted for a bigger discount.  For instance if the color of the day was blue and I decided to buy some blue fabric that day the price was discounted $1.50 a yard so that dropped the price of the regular cotton to $4.50 and batiks to $6.50.  Great prices and big temptations!

We are on the way home now and just got through St. Louis.

Until later,
Lynn

Five Hiney Kitchen

Here we all are in Betty Jane's kitchen.  We manage to all help cook and clean up for each meal and each one of us knows our job.   We have to shimmy past each other though.  Betty Jane just laughs at us busy bees.

Lynn

Super Quilters

The super quilters were even in attendance at the AQS show in Paducah.

Until later,
Lynn

Best Hand Workmanship

Best hand workmanship Paducah 2013

Best Of Show

Best of show Paducah AQS 2013.

Tentmakers of Cairo

Special display at the show.   Look at quilts behind one of the men working on a piece.  Magnificent color and designs.   Google them and I am sure you can find lots of photos.

Lynn

Quilting With Coats Dual Duty Plus

Today I am reviewing the sample I quilted with Coats Dual Duty Plus thread.  This is again a general purpose sewing thread that is mercerized cotton covered polyester.  I could not find the information on the weight or ply of thread but it is a medium weight thread and does leave a little lint in the machine but not bad enough to cause a problem.Same song as before – Bernina 730 (old one), BSR foot with 2.0 stitch length.  Bottom Line by Superior Threads in bobbin and an unknown batting (probably cotton).  I also used a size 14 quilting needle for this sample.

I had to increase the top tension a bit to 4.5 but after that it sewed beautifully.  This thread really surprised me as I was all set to not like it.  It stitched smoothly and paired up nicely with the Bottom Line bobbin thread. The backtracking was not too heavy and the quilting motifs show up great stitched in this thread.   I would definitely use this thread again!

Lynn

Tired Feet

Tonight my feet are tired after walking all day looking at beautiful quilts and shoping the vendors here at Paducah.

The winners were fantastic and so, so beautiful. Attached a couple of photos  of some of the details of the top quilt. These photos were all taken with my phone but will try to post more when I get home.

There is also a photo if me that was taken at Caryl Bryer Fallert's studio.  Lots of her lovely quilts on display plus fabrics, etc.

We are having a great time and keeping busy.   It is so nice to be able to stay here in Paducah and hope Betty Jane isn't getting tired of us yet. Tonight we had smoked pulled pork with a salad and some stirfried veggies that one sister brought and tomorrow we will have chicken breasts, salad and some corn that I froze last summer so you see we are eating well.

Need to go to bed now as I am really tired and need to be refreshed by morning to do more of the same!

Lynn

Bookmark

Today I am posting this from an app on my cell phone.

The photo is of the 4 bookmarks I made for my Paducah gals.  These are made from a large paper clip, a covered button and hot glue.   Easy-Peasy to make!!!  I followed the directions on My Three Sons blog post-tutorial on December 18, 2009

Click on the word "tutorials" and scroll down to find the tutorial link.

Lynn

Paducah...Shopping Already

We arrived in Paducah about 3:30 this afternoon and no more got off I-24 and had to stop at Hancocks of Paducah.   Found some beautiful batiks that were calling my name and had to come home with me.

Next stop the AQS booth to purchase our entry tickets for Thursday and Friday.   Saved standings in line tomorrow morning.  

Last stop before going to Betty Jane's to unload was to go to Elinor Burns Quilt In A Day tents and building out at the fairgrounds.  Every day they have a "color of the day" which means that any fabric that color is discounted.  Of course several of those blue batiks made their way into my hot little hands.

The photo is of all my brand new batik fabrics in the photo below.

Hopefully this will post now as the one I wrote this morning didn't until now.

Lynn

Paducah Bound

The car is packed to the gills as we depart for Paducah this morning.  There are 5 of us going again this year-2 sisters, niece, & friend. 

I know it looks like we won't have room to buy anything but we have a plan.  The cooler and 3 of the bags have food in them as we always take things for the meals that we fix at Betty Jane's.  We don't want our sweet hostess to have to cook so treat her to our meals instead.

We can pack in a lot of stuff when we need to. 

We have had an adventure getting here so far.  It snowed in Nebraska and was 20 degrees otutside.  Can you believe on April 23 it would be that cold?  We drove in falling snow on the way to Kansas City yesterday...strange.  This morning it was snowing and 36 degrees at my sister's home.  She lives near Columbia, MO.  Sure hopes it warms up this week as I am tired of being cold.

These are my 2 sisters in the photo.

Lynn

Pretty Tissue Cover

Another easy gift 'I've made for my Paducah girls – a fabric tissue cover that can be carried in a purse or bag.  This was such an easy gift to make and I used the same fabrics that I used for the eyeglass   cases.  I got the pattern from this website, Stamp, Stitch, Swizzle Sticks  I made my tissue cover/case pretty much like the directions on that site with a few chages.Cut one backing piece 4” x 5 3/4”, cut 2 pieces the same size (4” x 5 3/4”) and press in half with wrong sides together,  Cut 2 pieces of the same or contrasting fabric that are 4”x4” and press in half wrong sides together.Lay out the 4 folded pieces of fabric like the photo above.  The folded edges are placed towards the center.  This configuration reminds me of when you are trying to close a box with flaps where parts of each flap are tucked under the one of another.Lay this piece on the backing fabric piece with the right side of the backing facing the overlapped pieces.  Stitch with a 1/4” seam around the 4 sides and I rounded the corners a bit so when it is turned right side out there will not be a lot of bulk in the corners.  After stitching the seam I zig zagged around the edge to keep it from raveling as it is used.  You could also serge this seam to prevent raveling.

The last step is to turn it right side out, pushing the corners out and fill with folded tissues or one of the small packages of tissues.  Here all 6 of the tissue covers that can be carried in your bag and look pretty too.  I am not kidding these are super easy and fast to make.  Even kids could make them, they are that easy.  Rounding the corners makes them turn so much easier than the square corners and all 4 corners look the same this way too.

When you read this I will be enjoying myself in Paducah – am hoping it is warm so I can finally wear my spring clothes. 

Until Later,
Lynn

Fabric Eyeglass Cases

This was a really quick to make eyeglass case.  I made them for my whole Paducah group – 2 sisters, niece, and 2 friends, plus one for myself so made 6 total.  I found the pattern on this website (Wranglers and Ribbons.)  I followed the directions from the website that had lots of photos to help explain .
These are easy to make with just one little bit of a  tricky part.   Here are my photos of the construction and my comments on how I made them.Cut three pieces for each eyeglass case using the pattern from this webpage (About.com)  One fabric for the outside of the eyeglass case, one for the lining and a piece of thin batting.  Make sure you flip the pattern to get two pieces that will fit together when stitched.  It doesn’t matter if they are the opposite as the opening will slant down the opposite way.  I purchased this dogwood fabric last year at Paducah so is the perfect choice.Layer the three pieces with the bottom layer being the batting, outside fabric face up  is next and the lining piece facing down onto the top of the stack.Stitch 3 sides with a 1/4” seam starting at the flat bottom, up the side, across the curved top and down the other straight side.  Backstitch at both ends.  Trim the seam to approximately 1/8”. Now this next part is the tricky part.  Push the seam from the short side over to the other seam on the long side.  Push the two seams tightly together.Fold it flat and pin through all the layers including the pushed in seam.  Stitch approximately 1/8” deeper seam from the top to the bottom, backstitching the start and ending of the seam.  Make sure you are catching the seam you pushed to the inside.Trust me this will work, even though it is confusing right now.Clip the top corner at an angle to help reduce the bulk before turning .Grab the lining fabric and turn the entire piece inside out using a sharp point to push out the top corner.

 

Smooth out the open bottom and pin closed.  Make sure there are no pleats in the two fabrics or batting before you stitch across the bottom with a 1/4” seam, backstitching at each end of the seam.  Clip the corners to reduce bulk then zig zag the edge to prevent it from raveling as this seam will be exposed on the bottom inside of the case when it is used.

Turn the entire sunglasses case right side out pushing out the corners.  They won’t make an exact square corner because there is so much bulk there but do the best you can.TA Da – all done..  Isn’t that sort of magic the way the seams connect with lining and the top fabric all at one time!  Here are all the cases, each a little different from the one next to it but all similar.  The reason some are open from the opposite side is the way the pieces were cut.  Must have laid the pattern down on the fabric on some of them one way and some the other way.  Doesn’t matter at all though.Am excited to present these so have had to keep this a secret and not post about them until now as we left for Paducah today for another fun filled trip.

Lynn

Machine Quilting With Mettler Metrosene Thread

Today I am showing you an example of another general purpose thread you might have purchased for sewing clothing.  It is Mettler Metrosene Plus, a 100% polyester thread.  It is marked 100/3 so am assuming it is 100 wt. or that might be a texture number and that it is a 3 ply thread.  It feels like a medium to light thread and doesn't have much lint.  It comes in many, many colors so getting one to match a quilting project would not be hard.I feel like a broken record here – stitched on Bernina 730 (old model not the brand new one) with BSR – stitch length 2.0 (Bernina Stitch Regulator).  Bottom Line thread from Superior Threads was used in the bobbin  plus the information on the type of batting is missing.  Another of those unlabeled scraps but think it is some sort of cotton batting by the way it feels.

For this sample I used a size 14 Quilting needle and had to adjust the tension a bit up to 4.5. 

This thread stitched out nicely and shows some backtracking but it doesn’t look too heavy and the color of thread would make a difference on the density of the backtracking too. 

Not much more I can say about this sample but I would not hesitate to use this thread again for quilting purposes. 

Lynn

Machine Quilting with Gutermann Polyester Thread

Today’s post is Quilting With Gutermann Polyester Thread.  This is just a general purpose thread that I am sure I purchased to stitch up some clothing and has been stored away waiting to be used again.   This is a 100% Polyester thread and from what I can figure out from the website it is 100 texture which is not the same as weight so can't give you that.  I have not found the ply on the website but from unwinding it I believe it is 2 ply.  This information would be nice to know so that is an improvement that Gutermann could make to it's labeling and to the website. This thread is described as a general purpose sew-all thread.I used Bottom Line by Superior Threads in the bobbin like I have in all the samples I have made.  This Gutermann Poly thread had very little lint and stitched pretty well.  I used a #14 quilting needle and had to adjust the top tension a bit to tighten it some.  Again I used my Bernina 730 (not the newest model) and my BSR foot (Bernina Stitch Regulator) with a stitch length of 2.0.

I don’t know what the batting on this sample was but it looks like some sort of cotton.  Again one of the unmarked scraps in the scrap bag.  I must remember to tag or label my leftovers from now on.

I had never thought about using some of the spools I had stored away from clothing sewing for machine quilting before and found that they do work well for quilting too.  Now that about any thread can be used for quilting it is fun to think I can use up a lot of these threads and they come in so many colors too.

This thread quilted pretty nicely through the layers and didn’t leave real heavy lines where I backtracked.  It stitched out pretty well but it did take a lot of tweaking of the tension which could be due to several factors – batting and pairing it with a thread different than itself for the bobbin.

I would not hesitate to use this thread again for quilting so if you have spools left from other sewing projects just go ahead and give them a try on a quilting project and see what you think about it for this purpose. 

Lynn