Tag Archives: Aurifil thread

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The products featured in this post were given to me by Aurifil, and their industry partner Paintbrush Studio Fabrics.

As an Aurifil Artisan, I have monthly challenges to participate in this year. The August challenge was to create a wholecloth quilt. (My first!) Paintbrush Studio Painter’s Palette solid fabric (from their 2019 colors of the year) and matching Aurifil thread was provided to each participating Artisan. I received Coral fabric (it's a very pink coral) with 12wt Bright Pink Aurifil (#2425).

My initial plan was to add a couple other pastels to have some color variety in my quilting. (I changed my mind.)

Inspired by my June mini quilt, I opted for creating sections on my quilt with organic curve walking foot quilting in the Aurifil 12wt Bright Pink (#2425), with 40wt in the bobbin. I decided to add an echo line of stitching for each curve. Then I picked a variety of free motion fillers for the six sections in Aurifil 40wt Light Peony (#2437). I wanted a variety of curved and angular motifs.

 

Section one features one of my go to FMQ motifs: spirals! I use this one often. Fandangle Scrappy Squares and Modern Batik Scrappy Squares come to mind as two quilts I've quilted with spirals.

Section two has another favorite, a jagged stipple.

In section three, I used a nesting C motif that I last used on the mini that inspired this quilt.

In section four, I did two rows of boxy overlapping loops. (I want to call these boxy spirals, but they really aren't spirals. What would you call them?)

Section five has free motion echo lines radiating in from the initial walking foot quilting.

Section six had a triangle meander, which I previously shared in a blog tutorial.

 

I backed my quilt with some white on white from my stash and bound by machine (visit my tutorial to see my technique) using Aurifil 50wt Baby Pink (#2423).

I love the texture of the quilting!

My wholecloth mini finished at 17" x 22". I used a remnant of Quilter's Dream 100% Cotton Deluxe batting from this quilt.

You can find the chart of matching Painter's Palette solid fabric and Aurifil thread colors not the Paintbrush Studio website.

Thank you to Aurifil and Paintbrush Studios for the fun challenge!

I've linked up to the Q3 Finish Along Finishes post. Check out my whole Q3 list of projects.

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The products featured in this post were given to my by Aurifil and FreeSpirit Fabrics.

As an Aurifil Artisan I was invited to participate in an Anna Maria Horner Showcase. I was given three fat quarter's from Anna Maria Horner's Meandering Colorway of her Passionflower collection.

This ended up being a plan A turns into plan B turns into plan C... kind of project. I might be on F. ;-) Initially I was considering ways to use all three fabrics together and then decided I would add some solids. I wanted to lighten up the palette and add some contrast. Then I decided I really liked two fabric pairings with one fat quarter and one solid. I decided I would make a two sided mini quilt with planned improv log cabins, using the third fat quarter to bind.

But after I started piecing my log cabins (which I'm happy with individually) I decided that if I made it two sided I wouldn't be able to do decorative quilting in a way that I would be happy with it from both sides (since my log cabins are constructed differently and not mirror image of each other). So I switched gears and opted for an Open Wide Zippered Pouch. I've made a ton of them and they never disappoint!

I considered a patchwork exterior and finally settled on simply using the Passiflora in Heather for the panels of my pouch.

I chose Aurifil 50wt Dusk (#6733) from the Pastel Collection to do a little thread painting to stitch around the elements in the print. I love the simple detail it adds to the fabric. I think my new open toe free motion foot has really opened a world of possibilities, because this would have been really tricky with the darning foot I've used for FMQ for the last 8 years.

My pouch is slightly smaller than the small size in the tutorial and I backed my outer panels with SF101 Shape-Flex by Pellon. This worked well for the outline stitching/thread painting, though I wonder if I would need something more robust for thread painting if it were more dense. If you have experience with thread painting, what have you used?

Thanks for visiting!

 

Check out some of the other projects being shared with Anna Maria Horner's Passionflower Collection.

Mel Beach

Cassandra Beaver

Cheryl Brickey

Kristina Brinkerhoff

Kim Lapacek

Wendy Welsh

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The products featured in this post were given to my by Island Batik and Aurifil.

This month our Island Batik challenge was to try something new. There are so many options in the quilting world to try a new technique or tool. I was inspired by my friend Gayle’s recent quilt project where she used Fabric Magic on her quilt top. Here's one of her textured flowers:

 

Fabric Magic is a polyester fabric that "shrinks up to 30% when steam-activated." The way it works is that it is stitched to the back of a single layer of fabric in straight lines or free motion stitching. Then you apply steam (without touching the iron to the polyester fabric) and the Fabric Magic shrinks up and causes the quilting cotton to wrinkle up. Different density or types of stitching will achieve different results.

The Peach, Flame, and Tangy fabrics are from the Island Batik Basics line. I chose these as a starting point so I could submit this piece for the 2019 Pantone Quilt Challenge. The teal I added is a Cherio print (BE21-G1) from the Blenders line. I used Fabric Magic on three panels and, in true try it fashion, opted to use different free motion motifs on each.

The first, and my favorite, was back and forth wavy lines on the diagonal, stitched with Aurifil 50wt Fleshy Pink (#2420) on the Peach fabric. I think in addition to it being my preferred motif for ease of stitching and pattern of texture it creates, the technique just shows up better on lighter fabric due to being able to see the shadows from the texture more easily. The stitched area shrunk up from 17" wide to approximately 14 1/2" wide, about a 15% shrinkage.

My second section was pebbles on my teal panel with Aurifil 50wt Jade (#4093).

And my last section was spirals on the Flame fabric with Aurifil 50wt Red Orange (#2245). I didn't make a panel on the Tangy fabric since I didn't have a thread color that would blend well.

At this point I used my textured and non-textured fabrics to cut sections with smooth, gentle improv curves. I initially considered the sections to be horizontal, but decided in the end to rotate the quilt so they were in a vertical layout. I felt this orientation both worked better with the finished dimensions, and also gave a feel of coral and seaweed in the ocean.

I used a remnant of Quilter’s Dream Select 100% cotton batting that was just about the perfect size. Since I was working on a small quilt and intended to stitch on either side of each seam to stabilize the quilt before more quilting I opted not to baste. (Channeling Dora Cary!). I echoed each side of the curved seam on each non-textured fabric. (The textured sections did not get quilted, but if used in a larger section one could do some quilting on top of the previous stitching lines.) After my echo stitching, I chose nesting C curves, inspired by Mel Beach’s recent finish. I used overlapping curved lines on the two end sections.

I used the rest of the piece of Tangy fabric to make binding, knowing that I'd have way more than I needed and will utilize it on a future project. Isn't it so cute on my Binding Baby!? Usually I favor machine binding, but due to the textured sections I opted for a hand bound finish.

Living Coral finished at 22" x 13 1/2".

 

Be sure to check out what the other Island Batik Ambassadors are trying out this month!

This is also my contribution to the 2019 Pantone Quilt Challenge in the Minis category. (I'm in the USA.) And, it's my OMG for June (which I'll try to remember to linkup with the finishes at the end of the month). ;-)

I've linked up to June Favorite Finish and Beauties Pageant.

Thanks for visiting!