This Time It's a Blue Metallic Thread!

I'm almost finished with the embroidery of the papyrus blossoms in this new quilt, but have a loooong way to go.  Next I'll embroider the brown portion of that plant that holds the flower.  I love the way the dark blue accents the blue/green hand dyed fabric. The contrast is greater than the green metallic I used on some of the other flowers.  See my earlier post.  This will make the quilt for interesting for the viewer!

The more you can embroider with metallics, the fewer problems you will have.  Quilting through the entire sandwich is more challenging.  I detail all this in my new Mastering Metallics booklet.

Ann Fahl

Still Playing with Metallics!

For several months I've been working on a major piece.  When it's ready to exhibit I will show it to you, and write about how it developed.  But for now, I'm just beginning to embroider portions of it. The collage I've been working on, has been sort of a test piece for this new one which is currently titled, Egyptian Garden III.

After spending several days embroidering just stems, it was time to work on the papyrus flower/leaf.  I planned the embroidery (decorative stitching on just the quilt top) by doodling on a life size drawing on paper of the flower.  Right away I came up with something I really liked.  Since I've been playing with metallic threads now, I chose to use a green metallic on a mottled green flower. I used a topstitch 14/90 needle with the spool sitting upright.

Embroidered stylized papyrus ©2011 Ann Fahl

I am so thrilled with how this turned out, I just had to share it with you. The base of the flower hasn't been embroidered yet, but it will be stitched next. When the quilt is finished, the quilting will enhance the design direction that you see here.  From time to time, I'll show you little bits and pieces of this new quilt.

That's all for now.

Ann

The Beading Begins

Closed toe generic darning foot that Ann prefers for quilting around beads

Now that the embroidery is complete on the collage, I've started the beading. Unlike Lyric, I bead then quilt with a clear generic closed toe darning foot.  This system works well for me. In a much earlier post I discussed the pros and cons of darning feet.

The spot on the collage I chose first was the little wavy red line on the right hand side of the quilt. Check previous post for photos of this collage "Playing with Fabric." I ran a line of short stacks of seed beads.  I chose a size 6 yellow bead for the base and an iridescent red size 11 bead for the top.  This created an interesting line through the center.  Before viewing Lyric's dvd I would have just stitched a single line of seed beads down the middle and that would be it. So I've learned something new that is lots of fun. I love the combination of the two colors, it would be fun with 3 colors too!

Next I couldn't wait to put single bead stacks on the ends of the spiral eyelashes on the lower left corner. I chose the same size 6 red bead for the base and a size 11 black bead for the top.  This adds a nice little touch to the ends.  Although it doesn't show in this photo, the spiral is appliqued with a rusty red metallic thread and the eyelashes are covered with a red metallic size 40 thread.

Next, I decided to change colors and bead the inside of the large lime green leaf at the center top.  I tightly clustered some iridescent seed beads in the center. The leaf was hand painted and left over from my quilt titled Summer Sanctuary. The edges of the pink center already had a little free-motion stitching in a variegated pink thread.

Who knows what is next?

Ann Fahl

Red and Green for Halloween!

Last Christmas I showed you a photo of my cactus in bloom.  It is a huge show piece.  Well now it is also ready for Halloween.  Because of its size,  it no longer goes outside.  It's too darn heavy.  However, late summer it started to sprout a beautiful red and green coleus plant, which had been near it the year before. 

So my Christmas Cactus wishes you a Happy Halloween.

Ann's Christmas Cactus with Coleus all dressed up for trick-or-treat!

I'm wearing my pumpkin necklace, skull earrings, orange t-shirt and socks.  Get all dressed up in your costume and have a chocolate filled trick-or-treat.

Ann Fahl

Quilting with Metallic Threads Goes International!

It has been a few days since I announced my new booklet on metallic threads. This has been amazing. I now have sent booklets to three different countries, Finland, Germany and South Africa.  It seems that quilters everywhere have problems with metallic threads. This has really energized me and challenged me to do more quilting with metallics.

Diane Gaudynski has been playing with metallics too, check out her blog. She has written an extensive blog about choice of fabrics and how it plays such a huge part in the success with quilting with any decorative thread!

My quilting isn't anything like Diane's but I have just finished a sample quilting with gold sliver thread on some hand dyed fabric.  Hand dyes have caused great challenges in the past. You won't like the fabric I chose, but its the only fabric I am willing to use up for samples.  I chose the color gold so you can more easily see the stitching. I've had to pull it out from under the cat, Oreo to take a picture so you can see it.  So here it is, in all its beauty:

Quilting with wool batting, hand dyed fabric top and backing

The thread didn't break once!  Here is what I did:

• The "Sliver"spool was sitting vertically on the machine
• The Bottom Line in the bobbin
• 14/90 topstitch needle
• top tension set on 2.5
• Take some time testing the tension setting on a sample swatch before you begin on a project

Now I'm thinking about places I can use a little bit of this wonderful shiny flat thread in quilts that are already finished!  Who knows.

Please let me know how you have found success with metallics. Or any tips you may have to share. Good luck to all of you that want to play with metallics.

Ann Fahl