Storms and Inspiration

Last Friday was a lost day… or mostly so. 10 hours of weather radio weather warnings… from 2:30 in the afternoon until well pas midnight! Didn’t get much accomplished and even less on Saturday due to much less needed sleep. So a loss of most of 2 days…

I did a little playing…. in early May and June.

Inspired by red poppies that are planted by the Department of Transportation in Kentucky in some of the highway medians,

and a delicious commercial poppy print.

I created a little free motion thread painting sample for a workshop in early July where I shared my process.

I wanted to leave the back visible, so they could see the stitching- thread work that is usually covered by the backing.

I teased with this photo on Instagram… A full image when I have it completed.

I am in the process of adding the quilting. Of course not much to show… It also requires a little more threadwork on the flowers.

Big NEWS coming… Check things out on July 31!…. I have some more giveaways too.

More Later! Beth

Its a Thread Thing

I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but Thread is my thing!!! It is how I learned so much about needles and the best one for the job. Well that is not exactly true, it was Free Motion Quilting that led me down that path, but much of what is true for the Quilting part is also true for the Free Motion 'Threadplay' part.

So I thought that my next logical step would be to do some show and tell .... about the "Threadplay".

Let me start with one of the most difficult Free Motion Threadplay options. Metallic thread. These are postcards, and came about so I could compare the difference/sameness of the Fil-Tec Glide to the Floriani Thread. I had never used the Floriani and if I have to sell it, then I guess I should know something about it. I have used the Glide in the longarm and recently used it for another project in the Janome domestic machine, which is where I did the postcards.

I stitched these Free Motions with just the spine drawn. The feathers on the left are Floriani thread and the feathers on the right are Glide thread. The threads appear to be very much alike and the only real difference is the slight variation in color, I picked Floriani threads that were a close match to the Glide threads, and chose red and green. There wasn't a problem with either thread and to further test things I also tested the Signature Metallic thread. Wow!!! You don't really see it in the pictures, but I went over some areas with the metallic. I stitched pretty quickly and the Signature Metallic stitched like a cotton, no breaks, no shredding and no kinking. Of course a large eye helped the thread move without breaking.

The second is a detail photo, and it also is a little light on the metallic sparkle visibility. These were great fun to make, if you haven't ever made any postcards now is the time to try. Send one as a surprise to a friend or far away family member. I keep a stack on hand to mail... as needed. People just love to get them in the mail!

So to sum it up Floriani thread seems to stitch up the same as any other Polyester thread that I have used. Next up is to test the Floriani for use on the Longarm.

Have you ever received a textile postcard in the mail? Leave a comment. You might be the lucky one to receive a feather in the mail!

More Later- Beth