House Fans

Remember a post last week about thread color and choosing hand or machine quilting? I have had my happy scrappy houses top done for eons, but I was always stumped with how/what to quilt on it. It is one of those quilts that is bright and scrappy, and yet I didn't want to change thread colors with each section of every house. No matter what I did, the thread is going to contrast somewhere.

This also wasn't a quilt that I wanted to hand quilt. The quilt is 78X90 and if I'm going to hand quilt something THAT big, it is going to be something I WANT to spend that much time on. It didn't call for it to me, though if it did, I think I would have quilted it with black thread so it would show up against all the colors.

I loaded this yesterday afternoon and because I couldn't choose just one color, I chose varigated rainbow. After doing the first row, I didn't like it, but you know what, it was too late and I was not going to pick it out! The thread was a heavier jean-stitch type thread, and on the right quilt it would have looked great, on this one, it just looked SO obvious. I also had nightmares with skipped stitches, and broken thread. I was about to pull my hair out by the time it was done.


When I got it off the machine, the quilt relaxed a bit, and now I think it isn't that bad. Remember, no matter WHAT color I used, it was going to contrast in most places. I think the only way to avoid this would be to use a monofilament in things that are really differing color wise, but I'm not a big fan of monofilament. I have had some luck with a thread called "nymo" in a light blue. It's a multi-filament nylon, but it has semi-opaque qualities to it so it really blends in quilting scrappy quilts. Some people want only natural fibers in their quilts, so I've only used it on my own scrap quilts, and for a busy busy multi color quilt, I think it is the best out there for blending and not sticking out like a sore thumb.


The house quilt has a child-like color-crayon feel to it to me anyway, so I think I can live with the varigated thread. Though in the back of my mind, this little voice is saying "black perle cotton.....do it by hand"! That way there would have only been dots and dashes where the stitches show, not the thick solid lines that are more like stem-stitching that you get with machine quilting. Looks like oscar likes it anyway!


And this is my baby! This is Jeff, he will be 16 on the 25th. I snapped this pic this morning while he was emptying the dishwasher, just because I can never capture him for a picture, he hates having his pic taken and avoids it at all costs! He is 6'1" and in the 9th grade. :c)

Bonnie