Close but no cigar

The tulip quilt is sooo close to being done. I got some awesome thread from the cross stitch store yesterday and quilted the last border today to give the feeling of wind. The thread is a blue with blue metallic and looks very subtle with whisps of shine.

Only problem is that I bought 40 yards of thread and ran out about 10 yards short!

Back to the cross stitch store tomorrow.

Keep on Truckin'

I finally got back to quilting that tulip quilt today. I finished the flower outlining and now I am working on echo quilting the area around the flowers. You might wonder how I am marking my quilt top. I am using a yellow Sanford Verithin pencil (sharpened to a good point) and a flexible ruler that is made for tracing off curves. I am marking the echoes one ruler width from each other. I am using a domestic electronic Kenmore machine and an open toe darning foot while free motion quilting.

I may have mentioned that I have trilobal polyester thread from Coats and Clark in my bobbin. The black thread I used for outlining was also a trilobal polyester and is from Mettler. The thread I am using in the needle for the echo quilting is a butter cream color. It is a rayon machine embroidery thread from Coats and Clark.

Back to the Polyester

I did a bit of quilting yesterday on the red tulip. After only an hour or so, I was having trouble. The cotton thread just kept breaking. I decided that because it wasn't a long staple thread, it just couldn't handle going through the paint on the panel. It was time to go back to using the polyester thread.

Since switching back to polyester thread in the needle, not only have I had no problem with thread breakage, but the back of the quilt looks even better. The areas where I took a few stitches in place to secure the beginning and end of a line of stitching have little nests of black cotton thread on the back of the quilt. The areas where I began and ended the stitching in the same manner using the polyester thread is cleaner.

I am still not happy with the amount of black thread showing on the back of the quilt but my guess is that there is little I could do about that save changing needle thread color. I am only going to use the black to outline the flowers and leaves. After that I will switch to white and quilt around the flowers. I haven't decided if I will do a random pattern around the flowers or if I will simply echo quilt them. I am leaning toward echo quilting.

TEX weight and motivation

I looked into the weight of the black thread I have here at home. It is a 50 weight mercerized cotton. I think it will be fine for a wall quilt. It isn't a long staple thread but it is a wall quilt and this thread will only be used for a small portion of the quilt.

On the other hand I am having trouble getting motivated today. There are a few quilting shows on public television this afternoon. Maybe watching one of those will be inspiration to get moving. In the mean time I guess I could get some lunch and do some web surfing for quilt pattern ideas.

Getting Around to Quilting

It never fails. I wake up every morning with every intention of getting some quilting done but it rarely seems to happen. Something always seems to get in the way. Some days I can pinpoint exactly what happened that kept me from quilting. Today is not one of those days.

So let's see... what DID I do today? Woke up, watched a little TV, did some web surfing, made lunch, emptied the dishwasher, reloaded the dishwasher, made plans to go embellishment shopping tomorrow, cleaned the kitchen counters and sink, did some more web surfing, made dinner, watched TV with Pete, built a blog. Wait a minute! I did do some quilting! I think it happened somewhere between web surfing and making dinner. I managed to get about 2 inches of my tulip quilt quilted. Hooray for me!

But now that I look at it, I may tear it out. I am not sure that I like the thread I used. Trilobal polyester in both the bobbin and the needle. Can't see the stitches on the front. Not sure I like that. If I am going to go to all the trouble to very carefully quilt this with very tiny stitches, I might want to be able to see them.

Maybe I will do a test run of some black cotton thread in the needle on the tulip quilt tomorrow. If I find the time. If nothing keeps me from quilting.

I wonder what the Tex number is on the black cotton thread I have