Saturday, April 25, 2015

I have a variety of coloured threads in my collection, some for the bobbin and three different types for piecing and quilting. Since purchasing many of those colours I’ve learned that piecing can be done with basically three colours, very light gray, a cream, and a dark. When I quilt I want the stitches to be hidden as much as possible and usually opt for a light colour that will fade into the background.

I used to do my appliqué stitching as part of the quilting but when I mentioned that at one of the bees when I was working on another project it was suggested (strongly) that it should be done before sandwiching and quilting. They also suggested using a paper backing (or some fancy interfacing) but I find with the Steam-a-Seam my pieces stay flat. Doing it with the paper means one extra step to take the paper off and I’m all about getting it done as quickly as possible!

I’ve spent most of the day appliquéing and all those colours rules have been broken. My machine sews a beautiful blanket stitch; it is so easy I really don’t need to do much. I dug out all sorts of colours; some match the piece I’m stitching, some contrast with the piece I’m stitching and some don’t match very well at all! But it is all fun!

Here are just a few of the colours I’m working with today.