Thread Play

My health and happiness continues to improve on a daily basis. Still, I'm plagued with a cough and some other residual annoying symptoms from my recent dance with immunizations, and so I'm playing it safe for another day and staying home to lick my proverbial wounds. I did manage a trip to the grocery store yesterday where I managed to get into an argument with the cashier over a digital coupon. The conversation began something like this:

Me: I've been couponing since before you were born, young lady!

And that's probably all you need to know. Crankiness is one of the symptoms of a tetanus vaccine. I probably should have bought myself a bag of M&M's because, in fairness, I didn't murder her.

It was late in the day, but I managed to get a little bit of quilting done. I made myself a couple of practice pieces using fabrics from the quilt, and then I went to work setting up the machine, winding a bobbin, changing out needles, and testing my threads. Before I go on, you should know that I claim no expertise when it comes to free motion quilting on my Babylock Tiara. I have the benefit of having quilted (let me count) 33 quilts on it during the time I've owned it, and that's how I've learned. Also, I've asked my friend Marei (who has the same machine) for help many times, and she's been very supportive. Other than that, I know nothing. So if I say something here that causes you to give yourself a facepalm, please feel free to chime in. My feelings won't be hurt.

These are my thread candidates. The blue metallics are for the birds...not in the sarcastic sense...but for the actual bird on the actual quilt.

When I ordered these from Superior threads (the most cooperative metallics I've found), I couldn't decide which color I wanted, and so I chose three I liked. One can never have too much thread, right?

And then I already had these at home for the gray parts of the bird. The one on the left is an Aurifil gray. The middle one is a sparkly pearlescence metallic white. I used it for the snow in Gingerbread Square. The one on the right is a straight metallic silver.

These are two I like for the quilt borders. I'll probably end up using the one on the left, simply because I have more of it. I'd need to order more of the one on the right, and I won't finish up my July OMG if I have to wait for it to arrive.

As a reminder, here's my quilt:

So missing from all of that are some dark threads for the legs and the beak. I haven't yet decided what to do about the perch, but I'll probably use the same thread I use for the beak there. Also, I'll be using white for the background.

When Eliza came home to live with us, I was happy about giving her a window seat in my office because my sewing room is in our windowless basement. Still, on summer afternoons the sun shines in brightly there, and so I have to keep the shades pulled. Thus, the weird lighting in most of these pictures. As for my strategy with metallics, I've had the best luck when I give the thread plenty of room to uncoil before it passes through the eye of the needle. I noticed this silhouette gave a good example of what I'm talking about when I say it needs room to uncoil.

And because I have Photoshop Elements, I couldn't resist adding the pink line there just to make the point manifestly, patently, and conspiciously obvious...not that I'm redundant, or like to repeat myself, or anything. Besides, this little interlude into synonyms for the word "obvious" will serve to distract you from my crappy photography.

Also...you can see how the thread is still uncoiling as it passes through this insy-outsy thingy. In the past, I've used two wraps around this three wrap thing-a-ma-jig for metallic threads. Yesterday's sewing seemed to work best with just one pass through one hole. (I might have my bobbin tension too loose. Experimentation in the future.)

As for this uncoiling matter, on the mid-arm machine, the thread path is long enough that I can use the machine's spindle as usual. When I'm using metallic thread on my domestic machine, I give it a longer path by using a thread stand.

Next up, I can't say enough good things about thread lubricant. This is the one I use. Maybe there are others, but this is the only one I've ever tried.

It's silicon based, and so it won't leave residue on your fabric or your thread. I just put a line right down the spool from top to bottom, and then massage it in with my fingers. Usually that's all I need to do. Yesterday, I rubbed a little dab right on the eye of the needle as well.

As for needles, I use the largest eye practical. My domestic machine has metallic needles and those work well. On the mid-arm, I'm using a size 110/18.

And because I'm the kind of person who gets a tetanus booster every ten years, even knowing how sick it will make me, metallic thread isn't challenging enough for me. Oh no. To make things even more difficult, I'm using a smoky monofilament in the bobbin for this quilt. It's a little tricky winding onto the bobbin. I've had the most success if I wind the bobbin slowly, and only halfway. My theory about this is that the monofilament begins to stretch and tangle if it's wound too quickly. Also, it's a very thin thread, and so even half of an "M" class bobbin is quite a bit of thread. I follow this same rule when using it on my domestic machine.

Okay, so now I'm using an old practice piece just to check my tension. I always use a Towa bobbin tension gauge to get correct tension on the bobbin, then I'm just working with the top tension. This has been the most challenging part of using the Babylock Tiara. Good tension is always hard to achieve, and I have to continue to check it throughout the quilting process. So let's see how this goes. Well...I don't even have to look at the back to know my tension is too loose on top.

Looking at the back...yep.

So I tightened it about a half-turn, and it looks a little better.

It would have been helpful if I'd used a clean practice piece, and only one side to boot, but that's not what I did, so I'm showing you my third try with an arrow. It looks pretty good. Ignore my crappy stitching and just notice that the top thread isn't showing any more.

Okay, so moving to my scrappy test pieces, I tried the darkest of the blues first. I'm quilting feathers onto the bird, and I've said before that I'm not a great fan of feathers. Still, it's a bird, right? Birds should have feathers, and so that's what I'm doing.

It's a little too dark. All the sparkle is absorbed, and so I'm not getting the benefit of a metallic on this fabric. I might as well use a regular cotton thread.

Next, I tried the lightest of the blues.

And I'm not happy with that either. There's lots of sparkle, but no blue. It might as well be silver. Even so, I tried it on the scrap for the gray part of the bird, and that has potential. Ann Shaw suggested I could help distinguish the gray parts of the bird from the background with the quilting, and this might be one way to accomplish that. I'm filing that away for later when I choose the thread for that part.

Next, I tried the middle blue, and I like that best. It still has the blue color and plenty of sparkle, so I decided to go with that.

And I had just a little bit of time left in my sewing day to get started on the actual quilt.

I'm hoping to get much farther along with this today.

Now here's something that has Smitty's whiskers in a twist.

Did you see the besmirching of his reputation by Molly on Objects of Design this morning? She is claiming copyright violation of paw purrsition. We absolutely condemn this claim as being utterly purrposterous. As we mentioned to Molly, our paw purrsition is accompanied by our patented left viewing left-sided headcock, while hers is clearly accompanied by the forward-facing left-sided headcock. Our left viewing left-sided headcock is our original design, and not an infringement of copyright.

We are still consulting with legal counsel about this odious sullying of our reputation. Next, I suppose we'll be hearing from Buddy the dog/pony/whale/cat chimera that Sadie has infringed on his "beached whale" purrsition.

Our defense is that we are much too tiny and purrtite to entertain such an absurdity, so don't even go there, Buster. If necessary, we will lodge a purrtest. Hmph!

So there you go. Quilting and cats. That's what we do here.