Wonderfil Threads are Wonderful!
Blog Post by Liz Holpin, The Cotton Patch
Debby Brown, all round amazing quilting teacher and Handi Quilter Educator visited The Cotton Patch in the summer of 2014 and it really gave us the opportunity to play with Wonderfil Threads.
They work well on domestic and longarm machines. So here are some examples of Wonderfil Threads where I've used them recently.
"Bang Head Here" Workshop
This is Debby's Quilt -
In this one-day workshop we picked a word or phrase that had meaning for each of us. These words would go onto our wholecloth quilt and we would then use thread and quilting designs to quilt that phrase. The world was our oyster!
The phrase I decided on was "Gone Sailing".
I love sailing. This is also a great excuse for me to look at my holiday pics when it's raining outside!
Anyway, back to reality....
First we drew our words onto tear away paper such as Golden Threads paper and then laid it over our wadding sandwich.
We stitched through the outline of the words and then tore it away.
I recommend tearing it away as early as possible because otherwise you get left with itty bitty pieces of paper between the stitches. Depending on your stitch length and tension, if you pile up the stitches, it is Soooo much harder to remove the paper when there are dozens of stitches laid on top of the paper. Plus sometimes the stitches get pulled out and it doesn't look so good.
If you do leave small pieces between the stitches you may need these tweezers to remove the little bits - I find these easy to use even with weak thumbs.
We used three different colours of 50wt 3 ply Wonderfil Threads called Konfetti (solid colours) and Tutti (variegated) to embroider the words with filler.
In the bobbin for all the sewing in the workshop we used Decobob an 80wt cottonised polyester which works really really well with lots of different threads on the top. For a project like this where you're changing the thread on the top many times you can set your bobbin tension using the "drop test" and then adjust the top tension each time you change your thread and check it stitches out OK on a spare piece of quilt sandwich before stitching it out on your work of art.
Decobob comes in lots of colours either on a large spool or in packs of Prewound bobbins which fit either 15K or L (Domestic Machines) or Prewound for Class M bobbins - you have to select the right one for your machine. For example, for the Janome 1600PQC select the "L" bobbins. For the Elna 730, Janome Horizon 7700 and many other top loading machines select the 15K bobbin. The M bobbins are the big ones for industrial or longarm machines.
To sew with three threads on the Handi Quilter Sweet Sixteen we used the Big Bertha of needles - a size 20 Groz Beckert Needle. You would need to adjust to use a size of needle appropriate for your machine.
Initially we used the top layer of fabric and one layer of wadding. When we'd finished doing the three threads section we added another layer of wadding and a backing. You can see later in the photos below that the words do not show on the back of the quilt. Because you're using three threads inevitably you get pokies (thread going through to the back) so to make it look nice and neat we cover it up.
Shush! No one else will know.
(Wink)
Nice tip Debby.
Then we did some ruler work to get the straight lines and other shapes. The Sweet 16 has a ruler foot as standard but with some machines such as the Janome 1600P you can also get Ruler Feet . The ruler foot allows you to fit the ruler up to the edge of the foot and then by guiding the material and ruler simultaneously you can quilt...so much harder to explain in words so here's a video! Video for Free Motion Quilting using Rulers on a Domestic Machine.
The foot on the left (below) is the Ruler Foot which is what you need for this job - the one on the right is an open toe foot designed for using with Frames. It's called the Frame Foot Set. They come as a set of two so unless you have a frame you won't need the one on the right. (Unless you buy a Grace frame of course in which case it will be very useful!)
We sell the Janome Ruler Feet (Ref 10452) so if you have a Convertible Free Motion quilting foot such as this one below (Ref 10451) - you can change the bottom part of the foot for different purposes.
The Convertible Free Motion Quilting Foot (Ref 10451) is sold with many new Janomes and Elnas but note that there are specific ones for High Shank, Low Shank, Memorycraft, etc so you do need to check which one you need if your machine didn't come with one. You can then add the Ruler Foot to your machine and use the special 1/4" thick rulers that we supply to do straight lines, curves, etc.
Back to the quilt...
So once we had our structure we did free motion filler designs using 50 wt Tutti, 50 wt Konfetti and Mirage - all threads from Wonderfil.
For the sun I used the couching foot on the Sweet Sixteen and some bit of wool I had in the "to be used someday but have no idea when" box which seems to have alot of such bits in it...a very useful box. A bit like my husband's boxes of screws, washers, nails and widgets.
So there we go - a roundup of my "gone sailing" quilt.
Now it serves as a reminder when I'm miles from the ocean of the wonderful times I've had sailing and windsurfing.
Debby Brown, all round amazing quilting teacher and Handi Quilter Educator visited The Cotton Patch in the summer of 2014 and it really gave us the opportunity to play with Wonderfil Threads.
 |
| Debby Brown at our Handi Quilter Retreat in June 2014 |
They work well on domestic and longarm machines. So here are some examples of Wonderfil Threads where I've used them recently.
"Bang Head Here" Workshop
This is Debby's Quilt -
In this one-day workshop we picked a word or phrase that had meaning for each of us. These words would go onto our wholecloth quilt and we would then use thread and quilting designs to quilt that phrase. The world was our oyster!
The phrase I decided on was "Gone Sailing".
I love sailing. This is also a great excuse for me to look at my holiday pics when it's raining outside!
 |
| Relaxing sailing in nice warm Turkey! |
Anyway, back to reality....
First we drew our words onto tear away paper such as Golden Threads paper and then laid it over our wadding sandwich.
We stitched through the outline of the words and then tore it away.
I recommend tearing it away as early as possible because otherwise you get left with itty bitty pieces of paper between the stitches. Depending on your stitch length and tension, if you pile up the stitches, it is Soooo much harder to remove the paper when there are dozens of stitches laid on top of the paper. Plus sometimes the stitches get pulled out and it doesn't look so good.
If you do leave small pieces between the stitches you may need these tweezers to remove the little bits - I find these easy to use even with weak thumbs.
We used three different colours of 50wt 3 ply Wonderfil Threads called Konfetti (solid colours) and Tutti (variegated) to embroider the words with filler.
In the bobbin for all the sewing in the workshop we used Decobob an 80wt cottonised polyester which works really really well with lots of different threads on the top. For a project like this where you're changing the thread on the top many times you can set your bobbin tension using the "drop test" and then adjust the top tension each time you change your thread and check it stitches out OK on a spare piece of quilt sandwich before stitching it out on your work of art.
Decobob comes in lots of colours either on a large spool or in packs of Prewound bobbins which fit either 15K or L (Domestic Machines) or Prewound for Class M bobbins - you have to select the right one for your machine. For example, for the Janome 1600PQC select the "L" bobbins. For the Elna 730, Janome Horizon 7700 and many other top loading machines select the 15K bobbin. The M bobbins are the big ones for industrial or longarm machines.
To sew with three threads on the Handi Quilter Sweet Sixteen we used the Big Bertha of needles - a size 20 Groz Beckert Needle. You would need to adjust to use a size of needle appropriate for your machine.
 |
| Finished quilts of "gone sailing" |
Shush! No one else will know.
(Wink)
Nice tip Debby.
Then we did some ruler work to get the straight lines and other shapes. The Sweet 16 has a ruler foot as standard but with some machines such as the Janome 1600P you can also get Ruler Feet . The ruler foot allows you to fit the ruler up to the edge of the foot and then by guiding the material and ruler simultaneously you can quilt...so much harder to explain in words so here's a video! Video for Free Motion Quilting using Rulers on a Domestic Machine.
The foot on the left (below) is the Ruler Foot which is what you need for this job - the one on the right is an open toe foot designed for using with Frames. It's called the Frame Foot Set. They come as a set of two so unless you have a frame you won't need the one on the right. (Unless you buy a Grace frame of course in which case it will be very useful!)
We sell the Janome Ruler Feet (Ref 10452) so if you have a Convertible Free Motion quilting foot such as this one below (Ref 10451) - you can change the bottom part of the foot for different purposes.
Back to the quilt...
So once we had our structure we did free motion filler designs using 50 wt Tutti, 50 wt Konfetti and Mirage - all threads from Wonderfil.
For the sun I used the couching foot on the Sweet Sixteen and some bit of wool I had in the "to be used someday but have no idea when" box which seems to have alot of such bits in it...a very useful box. A bit like my husband's boxes of screws, washers, nails and widgets.
 |
| Upside down closeup of the sun rays |
 |
| the back of "gone sailing" quilt. |
Now it serves as a reminder when I'm miles from the ocean of the wonderful times I've had sailing and windsurfing.
 |
| Happy times! OK I''m just showing off now - going over 25 knots! |
Comments
Have a lot quilty pleasures!