Threads (not the magazine)

Sorry I've been so slow getting things posted--the holidays sort of got in the way.  And I was in the hospital, but that's a story for another place and time.

Anyway, I found this neat book at the Houston International Quilt Festival by Debbie Bates and Liz Kettle.  It's just full of wonderful exercises in exploring threads and how to use them on your sewing machine.  

You don't need a fancy machine either (which is right up my alley), just one that has both a straight and a zigzag stitch. Their exercises take the form of a 'passport'--a little sewn book that you create doing the exercises.   Here are some of my first pages:

I used my Kenmore computerized machine for this page and it was fun trying to get the lettering function to work properly so I could remember what I did!  Each spiral is done with a different type of thread, from silk 100 to the very heaviest I had on hand, buttonhole twist.

This page has examples of the computerized Kenmore (on the left) and the mechanical Kenmore 158-1789 (on the right), both doing examples of satin stitches.

This page contains an applique of some fabric I made playing with textures.  Basically, I took a layer of UNSHRUNK cotton batik, a layer of UNSHRUNK muslin, and a layer of UNSHRUNK solid yellow for the backing and free-motioned quilted the three layers together.  The I washed everything in the hottest water I could.  The shrinkage of the three fabrics gave the piece a delicious texture.

Finally, the fourth page I've done so far.  Here, I'm playing around with different tension settings on the top thread as well as different threads. From left to right: poly weight 50 (brown top thread), buttonhole twist (blue top thread), silk 100 (white top thread), and metallic (red top thread).  From top to bottom the tension increases and you can see what a difference that makes in the stitch and the amount of bobbin thread (gold in all cases) that shows on the top of the fabric.  Kinda neat, huh?  Playing around with the tension and thread weight gives me an unexpected range of new stitches.

These are only the first four pages of a passport that promises to be a good 4 or 5 inches thick by the time I really get it!   Stay tuned for more........