Aurifil Designer Challenge by Trudi

16
Jan

Aurifil Designer Challenge by Trudi

Posted by Lynne

Who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity for a little playing when Fat Quarterly asked for volunteers for an Aurifil Design Challenge! For me that is equal to ‘Play Time!’ As a regular user of Aurifil, for piecing and free motion quilting both on my New English Quilter frame and in the traditional sense of free motion quilting, I was immediately curious if the heavier weight threads would play as nice as the 40 and 50 weight I’m familiar with. I had a little scrap of Kona mid grey (not sure of the exact colour) which had been fused with a medium weight interfacing. Perfect! The 12 wt thread is thick, really thick, so I put in a size 100/16 needle and threaded my faithful Bernie to see how it played. I already had a 50 wt in the bobbin, (my choice of piecing thread and bobbin thread) and went for it.

You can see the difference in the needle sizes, it’s important to match the right needle and thread.

So I played a little with the thread, and ended up quilting all over the piece of fabric. What was particularly exciting for me was the texture that the quilting created, adding a whole new dimension to the fabric. Because of this, I was keen to turn it ‘into’ something, rather than just having a sample. And so a little zipper pouch was created.

I’m really pleased with the initial play I had with the 12 wt thread, because this really was just playing. Yes, I had a few issues with tension, but that is because I was using such a heavy weight thread on the top and too fine a thread in the bobbin. My Bernie has the bobbin tension set on the loose side, and the tension on top I adjusted to 0 as this was such a thick thread.

I have a plan for the other threads, and was thrilled the colours are right up my street! What I really enjoyed was the simple act of ’playing’ with this thread.