Friday Finish :: Fraktal Quilt

Taken from website blog before website closed down

 05 March 2021

It has been a very long time sine I have had a Friday Finish and so I am delighted to show you Fraktal - a full on gorgeous rainbow quilt designed by Paula Steel Quilts.

The finished quilt measuring 72" x 72"

I had been aware of this since the pattern launch towards the end of last year but sat on the fence for a while. Whilst I loved the Phosphor kits Modern Quilt Club were doing for the quilt, once I had a stock of Dashwood Pop Solids I kept thinking that they would work for it.

Final colour choice - Dashwood Pop Solids in Fuchsia, Crimson, Tigerlily, Yellow, Spring, Calypso, Royal and Purple with the addition of Kona Solids in Gumdrop, Coral, Limelight and Bahama

Finally I took the plunge, bought the pattern and got ready for the sew along. Obviously the timing of the sew along worked perfectly for the newly locked down UK and I have to say it has been wonderful to have the focus of this project to get me through the first hard few weeks of lockdown on January.

I have never made a quilt where all the cutting is done first - phew it took some time but made the sewing part much more enjoyable

The SAL schedule was weekly tasks and the first few weeks were hard going at the time - all that cutting, all those HSTs and then ALL of those flying geese. Paula assured us there was method in her madness and that once these tasks were done everything went together easily. She was right!

Once I had cut the colours, I began to question what I was making this quilt for! Whilst I loved the design we don't really need another quilt in the house, in fact the rest of my household might say we need to reduce the number of quilts in our house! Then I thought of making for someone, but it's a big quilt with lots of pieces so I wanted to make sure that they liked it! Luckily my niece liked the design and I was able to give her the choice of backgrounds - she settled on the dark grey which is Dashwood Pop Solid in Raven.

Auditioning the background - raven and white

Whilst not in the original plan for the SAL, Lisa and Paul organised some social Zooms which were wonderful. It was great to meet friends, old and new, and chat all things sewing. Both of the hosts were very generous with their knowledge and I will miss them after the last one tomorrow night.

Some progress shots - it made me smile every time I walked into my studio to see this bright flash of colour on my design wall and longarm table

Once the top was pieced and pressed it hung on my design wall until I was ready to load it onto my quilting frame. At 72" square this is one of the largest quilts I have made and I did not want to have to iron it again!

I choose another Pop Solid for the back, a paler grey called Tin, loaded that on the frame, used Warm & Natural wadding and then floated the top. I decided to use a very fine thread to quilt this and chose Superior Threads Microquilter in a mid/dark grey. Due to the fineness of the the thread it blends with the different colours of the quilt and does not detract form the piecing.

Load three layers, select thread, select needle and start quilting!

Whilst it was tempting to go all fancy with the quilting in the end I used simple straight line quilting and I am so glad I did. For one, it did not take me days to quilt but for two it looks stunning. The texture it gives is wonderful and because I used 100wt thread it is still nice a soft because it is going to be functional well used quilt, I hope!

You can see how the thread takes on the colour of the fabric it stitches over

The binding is usually the stumbling block for me so this time I even made the binding before the quilting was finished. Sadly it didn't stop me procrastinating because I still had to trim the quilt. This really is my least favourite part of the quilt making process and it holds me up every time. Yesterday I finally cleared my cutting table and got trimming.

And then straight away started to attach the binding. I machine bind both sides of the binding generally and so attach to the back of the quilt first with a 1/4" seam and then bring it forward and top stitch the edge. There was some quilt wrangling going on that's for sure and maybe some choice words too!

I love the accufeed system on my new Janome machine because it means there's no creep of the fabric and it makes stitching through numerous layers of fabric and wadding much easier.

Luckily it was dry this morning so I was able to put up my quilt frame outside and get some photos taken.

Look at that lovely texture!!

I love the quilt, I love the quilting, I loved making it as part of a group, I loved making it with someone in mind and I love that it has really reignited my love of sewing. Roll on 2021 I have got lots of things to make!

Thread :: 40wt vs 60wt

This article was first published in June 2020 on Pinhole Quilting's website

Before I bought my longarm machine I have to admit I knew nothing about thread, although I was not aware of this shortcoming!  Basically I bought whatever was in the local shop if it was the right colour.  Now I realise there is so much more to it than that and I have loved finding out and learning all about it and it seems a near endless journey.

When I quilted the first quilt of mine on my longarm machine I wanted to use seven colours and, having just bought the machine, I couldn't really afford to splurge on thread.  I was recommended Glide which I had never heard of before.  I thought that when I had some more money that I would get some different thread and whilst I have bought and used other thread over the years after nearly 5 years Glide thread makes up the majority of thread on my shelves.

GLIDE THREAD

Glide is a 40wt trilobal polyester, that comes in so many lovely colours and is an economical buy on either 1000m or 5000m cones.  It is perfect to use on the Handi Quilter longarm machines as the top thread and in the bobbin if you wind your own.

For at a glance identification the 40wt has a grey cone and the 60wt has a black one.  And you see that lip on the bottom?  It comes down so that you can wind the thread around it and pop it back to keep the thread in place - that really appeals to me.  When you are using the cone do make sure that the bottom collar is popped back into place otherwise the thread can snag on it and break.

Initially I was concerned about how shiny it was and it does look shiny on the cone but, when you quilt with it, the well defined stitches only have a mid sheen which I really like and it looks great under lights if your quilt is going to hang on a wall as opposed to a bed.

WHAT IS THREAD WEIGHT?

Basically it's a system of classifying how thick thread is.  There are several systems in use but the most common is weigh, wt - which can range from 12wt upto 100wt.

The number comes from how many metres of thread it takes to weigh 1kg:

if 12 metres of thread weighs 1kg it is 12wt 

if 100 metres of thread weighs 1kg it is 100wt

so the thicker the thread, the less required to weigh a kg and the lower the weight.

This is a very simplistic explanation and there are other factors involved. 

WHEN WOULD I USE 40WT OR 60WT?

I am someone who likes to see the stitches in my quilting and so would choose 40wt for the majorty of my quilts but sometimes you want the texture quilting can give you but without the quilting taking main stage.

This is all down to personal preference but good questions to ask yourself are:

1.   How visible do I want my stitching to be?

Sometimes the piecing of a quilt is the real star of the show but you want to quilt for stability and texture and this is a good time to switch to a finer thread.  

Sometimes there are lots of colours in a quilt and you do not want the thread to overpower the lighter colours but you don't want to have numerous thread changes. 

Since the introduction of Glide 60wt thread I have offered it to my customer for both of these reasons.  The quilt below was quilted using Glide 60wt in Cool Grey 3 and the thread worked across all the colours without demanding attention!

2.  How dense is the quilting going to be?

If you would like to quilt densely but still want to be able to snuggle in your quilt then one option is to change to a finer thread.

3.  What is the scale of quilting going to be?

Whilst this could be included in the density of quilting above it is worth mentioning stitch length here.  Glide 40wt gives the most lovely well defined stitches at a stitch length between 9-12 spi but if you take the stitches any smaller than this it looses that nice look.  This is a good reason to test all the threads that you want to use on a project with the fabric from the project and at the settings that you want to use. 

On the piece below I did stitch test at 11 spi and it was lovely but when I increased the stitch length up to 15 spi it is not so nice!

HOW SHOULD I SET UP MY LONGARM MACHINE WHEN USING GLIDE?

For many years I only ever used a size 16 needle with Glide 40wt but knew that many other people used size 18.  I still stick predominantly to size 16 but if I find I am having problems then changing up to size 18 is an option, so try both and see what works for you.

Ordinarily the finer the thread the smaller the needle so the recommendation for Glide 60wt is a size 14 needle, however I find that a size 16 needles works just fine, but again if I was having problems I would think about trying a size 14 to see if it solved them.

I only required a slight change to the tension between the two threads.  When I swapped from 40wt to 60wt I loosened the tension by 10 minutes, ie the little dot on the black tension dial went from the half past position to the 20 past position. or looking at the easy dial tension on screen it went from 80 to 76. But remember that these figures are for my machine only as they are not calibrated units.  It is always good to keep a notebook and pen handy and write down the different settings so you have something to refer back to - it will save you sooo much time in the future!

SAMPLES OF 40WT AND 60WT

Below you will see some samples I have stitched out:

Thread Glide 40wt and 60wt in Cool Grey 3

Bobbin Decobob in Dove Grey

Fabric Kona Cotton in Charcoal

Backing Makower extra wide 100% cotton fabric

Wadding Sew Simple Super Soft Cotton White

Needle Size 16

Quilted On Amara with Pro-Stitcher

Design 1 Denali 4 by Anne Bright in PS Library

Design 2 4387 Feathers Illusion Block 1 by One Song needle Arts in PS Library

Glide 40wt at 11spi

Glide 60wt at 11spi

Glide 40wt at 14spi

Glide 60wt at 14spi

CAN I USE GLIDE 40WT AND 60WT ON OTHER MACHINES?

Absolutely!  I use Glide 40wt on both my domestic sewing machine and overlocker.  

Domestic Sewing Machine

I often finish my binding by machine and will use Glide 40wt on the top to get a nice stitch on the front of my binding

It also works well in the bobbin if you are top stitcing an item that you want to see both sides of.

I use Glide 60wt on my machine for both the top thread and in the bobbin.  I find the finer thread really helps my piecing, especially when using solid fabrics.  It gives a neater crease on the seam and less visible holes.

In fact I never piece with any thread thicker than 60wt these days and only use three colours: off white, mid grey and a darker grey.  I find that Glide 60wt in Linen, Cool Grey 3 and Sterling can fulfill nearly all my piecing requirements and I have recently used them for dressmaking, because they were what was on the machine and the results were great.

Overlocker

I use Glide 40wt on my overlocker with great results and if I don't have 4 cones of the same colour I mix and  match.  The photos below show 4 different blues that I used on my overlocker and got such a lovely variegated effect!

On both of my machines I do not have to change the tension or needle when I go between 40wt and 60wt.

WHAT COLOURS DOES IT COME IN?

Did I mention it comes in lots of colours?!  You can get a lovely shade card that has actual thread in it so that you can really see the colours available.

And here they all are at the Festival of Quilts last year ...

I have to say that there is always a lots of temptation to buy some more thread when I am working with Pinhole Quilting!

CUSTOMER QUILT :: PROGRESSION BOM

I happen to have done two of these quilts recently and both customers chose the same quilting design - that's a first for me!

 

I kept thinking of Opal Fruits whilst I was quilting this ....

Quilt Pattern

Progression BOM by Thge Crafty Nomad

Quilting Pattern:

Maze by Wasatch Quilting

Wadding:

Warm and Natural by The Warm Company

Thread:

Glide Bone by Filtec Threads
Decobob Antique White by Wonderfil

Quilted on:

Handi Quilt Amara with Pro-Stitcher using Size 18 needle

Feedback:

It's so beautiful Abigail! 
 Thank you so much for 
your attention to detail 
and experience.  
Not to mention the 
speedy service and help

CUSTOMER QUILT :: RAINBOW REMIX

Can you believe the lady who made this quilt is a beginner?!

Quilt Pattern

Rainbow Remix by The Quilt Room

Quilting Pattern:

Stipple

Wadding:

Unknown

Thread:

Glide Boneby Filtec Threads
Decobob Antique White by Wonderfil

Quilted on:

Handi Quilt Amara with Pro-Stitcher using Size 16 needle

Feedback:

CUSTOMER QUILT :: ZIG ZAG

This is a quilt for a lady from London, who is a repeat customer, I love that!

Quilt Pattern:

Unknown

Quilting Pattern:

Circle Meander Squared by Wasatch Quilting

Wadding:

Cotton Blend by sew simple 

Thread:

Glide Warm Grey 4 by Filtec Threads
Decobob Dove Grey by Wonderfil

Quilted on:

Handi Quilt Amara with Pro-Stitcher using Size 16 needle

Feedback:

"The quilt you did for me looks amazing, thank you."

Festival of Quilts Celebration Giveaway :: The Final One and It's From Me!!!!

So we've made it to the end and here is the final #cutandalterfoqgiveaway .....

EDITED ON 04/08/20 AT 12:00 :: THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

This one's from me to you .....

So now it's my turn on the #cutandalterfoqgiveaway but I find it so hard to write about myself ...... Let's start with what I am - I am a daughter, sister, wife, mother, quilter, educator, one time home educator (we did it voluntarily for years ;)), reader, crocheter and lots more things beside.

I have been a longarm quilter for 5 years now and have been quilting for others for 4 1/2 of those.  In 2018 I became a Handi Quilter Educator and I have found my passion - I love teaching.  Hopefully classes will be up and running again soon and I am also going to be teaching patchwork and quilting on domestic sewing machines aswell.  I give talks and run workshops for Clubs and Guilds and I have to say that I love being in this quilting community.  I get to sew, chat and teach like minded people, generally with coffee and cake thrown in.

Giveaway Prize:  Quilted, zippered pouch along with 5 long quarters of Kona Cotton and maybe, just maybe, there's something in the pouch!

Apologies to overseas readers but due to postage costs this prize is limited to UK addresses only

Conditions of Entry:

To enter this giveaway you need to go to Instagram or Facebook on the links below.

Enter on Instagram

Enter on Facebook

Good Luck!!

Festival of Quilts Celebration Giveaway :: Pinhole Quilting

Day 4 of giveaways as part of the #cutandalterfoqgiveaway and they just keep coming!

EDITED ON 04/08/20 AT 12:00 :: THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED

Pinhole Quilting are the distributor of Handi Quilting longarm quilting machines for the UK and beyond, along with all the accessories and Glide thread that  a quilter could ever want!

They have a wonderful spacious showroom and warehouse in Pinvin, just outside of Worcester, where all the different machines can be taken for a test drive.  It is great to be able to try them out and get any and all of your questions answered by Liz or Pete.  The showroom is also the setting for classes which is an amazing resource for longarm owners and their continuing quilting journey.  If you come on a class you may just have me teaching you!

Giveaway Prize:  Sooo many things!  Over £100 worth of quilter's swag, including a Handi Quilter apron, padded tablet bag, wadding shears, 5 Glide thread cones, Handi zinger with scissors, nail file, mini ruler, bobbin box, cutting mat, tablet stylus and Handi Quilter bag - phew!!!

Apologies to overseas readers but due to postage costs this prize is limited to UK addresses only

Conditions of Entry:

To enter this giveaway you need to go to Instagram or Facebook on the links below.

Enter on Instagram

Enter on Facebook

Good Luck!!

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