Highlighting with Black Thread

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golden brown eye of an owl, fierce with black highlights

Have you ever looked at a spool of solid black thread and either thought it was the most boring thing in the world, or that it could only have limited applications?  After all, how much can you really do with solid black thread?  It turns out there’s a lot of things that black thread is useful for, starting with knowing how to highlight with black thread.

I both love and hate sewing with black thread, and for exactly the same reason – it’s almost impossible to see when you’re sewing on black material.

Tips for Sewing with Black Thread

When you’re sewing with black thread, and especially if you’re sewing black on black:

  1. Make sure you have a really good light shining right where you’re sewing.

This is why I hate sewing black on black – it’s almost impossible to see.  The great thing about sewing black on black is that it’s impossible for others to see as well.

I can see the mistakes I’m making as I’m sewing, but as soon as my project is out from under the machine, they pretty much vanish.  And you can bet that others, who don’t know what to look for, will never find it.  Your reputation for excellence will survive intact. J

For me, at least, the sewing machine light is not bright enough for black on black work.  Of course, I suffer from bad eyesight, so the sewing machine light isn’t enough for many projects.

I definitely recommend finding a secondary light source for your sewing space and especially focused on your sewing machine foot.

You can find LED lights with bendable necks (or throats or whatever those long bendy things are) and magnetic pads that will adhere to your machine so you can put the light exactly where you need it.

I like these lights for short time use only as they tend to get in the way if you just leave them there all the time.  Hence the magnetic pad.

  1. Use highlighting techniques to bring visual enhancement to plain areas

Black thread can also be very dramatic when you want it to be seen.

This thread is fabulous for highlighting areas that are not visually exciting on their own, or for quilting designs onto large areas that need quilting but have no seams to follow.  For example, I used black thread to quilt “veins” onto my dragon wings.  The wings were much too large to leave alone, yet any traditional quilting design was going to take away from the overall design, so I quilted in the veins like they were always supposed to be there and it looks great!

  1. Pop up, add depth, define dimensions, and create mystery by highlighting with black thread

Because black is such a dramatic and definitive color, it’s really useful for making certain aspects of your quilt pop out visually.

For instance, I used black around the eyes of my stained glass owl – it makes the eyes appear much deeper and mysterious.

Black also adds depth to a flat surface.  If your project has trees or walls, windows, doors, or rocks, simply highlight with black thread on the same side of each figure.  This will appear as shadows to the human eye and your piece will instantly gain depth and visual interest.

Using Scraps for Your Experimentation

Never, ever try something new on your project.

Instead, practice saving your scrap materials.  Then you can experiment to your heart’s delight and your finished project will look like: “oh, of course, she was perfect!”

This is especially true when you’re edging something; an applique, attaching a trim, or defining an edge in a piece of landscape quilting.

Experiment a little with what width looks best for the effect you’re striving for.  I like to use a satin stitch (it’s the buttonhole stitch on my machine) and then I play with how wide I want it.

Barb doesn’t like a really tight satin stitch, so she only sews hers with about half the thickness that I do, and it looks great.  I like to make mine much more obvious, so no matter how wide I stitch, I always make it real tight. Play with it, on a piece of scrap material, and figure out what works best for you and your project.

Final Thoughts

My favorite black thread of all time is Aurifil #2692.  It comes on an orange spool of 1300 meters, and lasts quite a long time.

Just remember that black adds a lot of depth and definition to any project, and you can make it pop or disappear – whichever you like.  So experiment with it and enjoy yourself.

golden brown eye of an owl, fierce with black highlights

A combination of grosgrain ribbon, embroidery thread, and a highlighting stitch with black thread makes this owl’s eyes pop big time!  

 

Multi-colored applique feathers edged with black thread on an owl panel

Here a combination of embroidery thread and black stitching thread serve to define and separate the feathers on the owl’s wing, as well as giving depth to the overall piece.

 

Black camel silhouette against rich starry night sky

Sometimes highlighting with black thread is a very subtle endeavor.  The reins on the camels, for example, are made with black thread in a very fine satin stitch.  The result is nearly invisible, yet the camels without the reins looked ridiculous!

 

Thick black thread satin stitching on a Christmas table topper

Highlighting can also become very dramatic.  The black thread serves to define dimensions, offer pop-up value, and make the duller colors of this Christmas table topper glow.

 

Some enhancements are much too fine to do with fabric.  This spider web heart was made using a thick stitch of black thread.

 

Black silhouettes of woodland plants and vines

Black thread can be combined with other highlighting elements.  Our Small Hearts panel uses a combination of highlighting with black thread and highlighting with a black marking pen to create the multi-dimensional, romantic woodland setting.  

8 Reasons Why We Quilt

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blue, purple and aqua quilt called Twilight Tide

Every single day across the continents of North America and Europe women, girls, and a few brave men, walk into quilt stores.  Every hour somebody, somewhere, buys a piece of fabric, or a notion, or something in order to make a project that is contained by the wonderful word “quilting.” But the question is: Why do we quilt?

Obviously we do it for reasons that make sense to us.  I thought I’d give you my humble thoughts on what motivates us.

 

  1. Quilting is a practical pursuit

I’ll start with the most obvious reason to quilt; we tell ourselves that our loved ones need blankets, so why not make them something special?

This is the hook, the very real reason we become quilting addicts.  Once you step into the shallow water of this justification, you can either go deeper or back out altogether.  If you stay in these shallows, it won’t be long before you’ll be looking at more intricate patterns, more exciting colors, and cooler notions.  All these things will lure you in deeper and before you know it, you’re swimming.

This is how I got hooked.  I told myself that I would make each of my 3 children 5 quilts throughout their lives, from babyhood to marriage.

Hah!!  20 years, 3 grown children, dozens of quilt projects (I’ve lost count), two sewing machines, half a houseful of fabric, and this website later… Well, as you can see, I’m totally addicted.

Another reason to quilt is:

  1. Quilter’s everywhere share a deep camaraderie

You can join quilting groups anywhere, walk into any quilt store, or go online, and be instantly welcomed and accepted.  That’s HUGE!

  1. Quilting creates something beautiful

Most quilts, of any size, are a work of art, and it’s a wonderful thing to create a thing of beauty.

Of course, it’s an added bonus when non-quilters are awed and amazed by your skill.  It’s a great feeling of superiority.  I always make sure that my sisters are aware at all times of my amazing skill.

  1. We can show off our quilts in public

Another reason why many of us quilt is to enter quilt shows to show off our quilts and skill, and to celebrate the creativity that’s involved.

(Quilt shows are also great for finding unique, new stuff and some of the latest colors, etc.)

  1. Quilting is fun

It’s a lot of fun to make something new and gorgeous and be praised and admired for it. As a matter of fact, I have to admit that I’ve gone way past addicted and am totally consumed by lust for new colors, new patterns, and new ideas and designs.

 

 

 

Facts About Quilting

Magenta arrow containing facts about quilting

 

Magenta arrow containing facts about quilting

 

Magenta arrow containing facts about quilting

 

Magenta arrow containing facts about quilting

 

Magenta arrow containing facts about quilting

 

Magenta arrow containing facts about quilting

Every now and then, I try to feel guilty about it, but then I remember Barb’s motto, and I’m good to go.  I want all of you fellow quilters to take Barb’s philosophy to heart when you’re tempted to justify quilting to yourself or others.

  1. We need something to keep our minds, hearts, and hands busy

Some of us quilt for no other reason than that we’re retired.

I got deeper and deeper into quilting when my kids could do most of their own homeschooling and I was left twiddling my thumbs.  My friend Barb got into it once she retired from nursing and found that gardening alone just wasn’t going to fill her life.

  1. We want to teach a skill to our children

I wanted my children – the girls and the boy – to be able to sew.

I had mixed results.  All of them can mend a simple hole, sew a button back on, and use a sewing machine.  None of them have ever sewn their own clothes, or given me any reason to believe that they will ever be able to read a pattern.

However, when I started quilting more seriously, I realized my mistake.

Quilts are much easier to grasp in concept that even a simple pants pattern, and you still learn many of the basics of sewing.

So, if you are trying to teach Home-Ec to your children, I would advise starting the sewing lessons off at the easiest level – potholders.  Once the kids have learned the basic sewing techniques patterns will be much, much easier to both learn and teach.

  1. We Quilt Because We’re Closet Masochists

This is my personal favorite.

Human beings are very stubborn, and enjoy a challenge, but quilting clearly shows that life is not difficult enough on its own, and my own sneaking suspicion as to why we quilt is because we’re closet masochists.

Politically correct people would say that we enjoy a challenge.  This sounds very fine and noble, but I’d be willing to bet that every one of you readers has had many moments of screaming, tearing out of hair, banging your head on your machine, and throwing your project across the room.

Finally – the best reason of all! 

Barb always says:

Quilting keeps us off the streets and out of the bars

And anything that does that has got to be a good thing!

Blending with Beige

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cream thread against an autumn table runner

Do you know what the most boring color ever is?  Beige!

  • What do you wear when you want to disappear in a crowd?

Beige!

  • When you are sewing seams and you don’t want the thread to show through on the front, and you want it to appear that there’s really nothing holding the whole thing together – what color do you use?

Beige!

I am a self-avowed lover of colors, patterns, and design.  The brighter and flashier the better.  Every time.  But here’s:

What I Didn’t Know (about that boring beige thread)

Barb taught me this when I showed her one of my projects once.  Looking closely, from the front, you could see the stitches marching down the seam.  Barb said it was because I used the wrong color thread (but I say it was also because I pressed my seams open so carefully).

Naively, I had assumed that because seams live on the back of projects, I could use whatever thread I had to hand and no one would ever be the wiser.  Barb swiftly disabused me of this notion.

From the front of a project, especially if you are a dedicated ironer, you will be able to see a quick glimpse of the thread that holds one piece of fabric to another.

There are two things you can do to fix this:

  1. You can use a thread color that matches perfectly with the material

This works for specific projects – most particularly when you’re matching blacks.

There are two problems with that, however.

First you’ll never be able to collect enough thread (even if you’re a thread-a-holic like me) to match every fabric in every single project.

The second problem is that, eventually, you’ll want to match two fabrics with very different colors and temperatures, and “matching” thread will only match one side.

  1. You can use beige thread as your go-to seam thread

Now when I say beige, I am speaking of a very specific shade of beige thread, because there are more shades of beige than almost any other color.  They range from just barely off-white to almost brown, to grayish browns, and I have tried quite a few of them.

Problems with the wrong beige thread are:

  • White shows up very easily and so do the paler shades of beige thread.
  • However – and this surprised me – if you go too dark or too tan, the thread becomes obvious again.

After trying many, many different shades, I finally settled on a creamy beige that combines the best of all the beige world, and disappears against almost any background.

This magical beige thread is AURIFIL #2310.

Beige #2310 comes on an orange spool that holds 1300 meters.  This is a lot of thread, but well worth it!  It’s a creamy color with just a hint of tan, and that color vanishes completely in almost any color material you can imagine.  It will even vanish on some textured or patterned black materials.

The Best Bottom Line Thread

I also use this same thread in my bobbin and it works great – at least for my machines.

Because it disappears so much – and you generally won’t care what color the back thread is on a seam – I double recommend using this thread as your go-to bobbin thread.

Note: I want to say a word here about those specialty bobbin threads that you can buy at most quilt stores.  They’re much thinner than your regular sewing threads and go a lot further.  It’s unbelievable how much you can get on a bobbin, and they seem to last forever.  They come in shades of cream, gray and black and I would advise you to give them a try.

The ones I have tried are Bottom Line Threads and a King Tut version.

However, I don’t use them and I blame Michael.  I used to use them and loved them, but ever since Michael decided he was my very own sewing machine repairman, they refuse to work in my machines.  I fought with continual thread breakage, huge thread snarls on the backs of projects, and endless seam ripping before it dawned on me what the problem was.  I experimented a little with my bobbins and discovered I was right, so now I load my bobbins with the same thread I use on the top, and both me and my machines are much happier.

 

P.S.  If I’m sewing black material, I usually use black thread to sew with. My favorite is AURIFIL #2692 and it does the same great job for me as the beige does.

You can read more about sewing with black threads, and all the reasons why and when you should and shouldn’t use them on my blog: Highlighting with Black.

Discover Your Style of Artistic Expression

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three fabric birds in a maple tree art panel

Art calls to every human soul on some fundamental level.

Everyone wants to experience life through another perspective – to be able to enjoy a moment of what would have otherwise been a fleeting beauty, or a wonder of the imagination that could have been locked away forever.

Not everyone feels worthy of creating that beauty, however.

If you’re not a master, then you can feel like your interpretation, your perspective, is not as valuable as someone who paints or sculpts for a New York gallery.

And maybe that’s true if you want to be a painter or a sculptor.  Those are very competitive fields, after all, with defined rules, periods, and histories.

Princess Yellow Belly and her friends don’t hang things in New York art galleries.  They’re free spirits – not geniuses.  They’re just ordinary designers, ordinary lovers of beauty, who want to claim a small piece of that beauty for themselves.

Maybe that’s why they went into fabric art.

There aren’t so many rules for fabric art.  And there are a lot of different styles available.  Fabric art can be interpreted in many different ways, with a lot of different materials, and no piece will ever be identical to another.

All the same, fabric art can be tricky.

Doing something that you don’t enjoy, or attempting something a level beyond your current skill level is a good way to get frustrated, or even fail.

Discover Fabric Artist Styles

Fabric art should be fun – and you won’t have any fun if you’re trying to use techniques that don’t jam with your personality.

There are a couple of different quilter/fabric artist types out there:

  1. The Elegant Precisionist

This quilter is also known as the traditionalist quilter.  Amish quilting ladies are a beautiful example of this style.

Being an elegant precisionist means that you are drawn to traditional, often complicated, patterns and colors.

Elegant Precisionists enjoy things like:

  • Paper piecing (super finicky)
  • Those little dash-marks between the quart inches
  • Powerful patterns with liquid or traditionalist colors

An Elegant will also often be at an intermediate, if not an expert, level.  Beginners might be drawn to patterns like simple Dresden Plates, Log Cabins, and Flying Geese.

If you are at an intermediate or an advanced level of ability, then it probably means that you are drawn to complex patterns that require finicky techniques and a lot of time – a paper-pieced Mariner’s Star is an excellent example of an Advanced Elegant Precisionist’s domain.

Elegant-Precisionist-Quilting-Test

  1. The Modern Precisionist

This type of quilter still likes to follow patterns with precise instructions and predictable outcomes – but unlike the Elegant Precisionist is drawn to modernistic, contemporary, avant-garde type patterns.

  • Modern Precisionists like box inside circles, or vice versa
  • Striking colors like orange and black, yellow and white, neon blue and gray
  • Jarring patterns that knock people out of their comfort zones and demand attention

Modernists can be anywhere between beginner and advanced, although many are intermediate since the patterns are often not as technical as traditional formats, and also allow more room for error.

Modern-Precisionist-Quilting-Test

  1. The Flower-Child

Yes, there is a quilting style for the freedom-loving, flower-wearing, lots-of-colors person.

Flower-children like:

  • Flowers
  • Flowing rainbow colors
  • Glitz and sparkle
  • Patterns that are more impressionistic than realistic

Flower-children often hover between the beginner and intermediate levels of quilting because the patterns they are drawn to does not require nearly as much finicky care as any precisionist.  However, no one adds accessories like a flower-child, either.

Appliques, crystals, buttons, ribbons, and glitzy items of all kinds can be found in this type of fabric art.

Flower-Child-Quilting-Test

  1. The Mad Scientist

A mad scientist quilter ignores rules and conventions.  A mad scientist is unable to conform and simply settle for what has already been done.  Free-spirit meets insane experimentation.  Mad scientists often

  • Dye their own fabrics
  • Put different weights and types of fabric – like satin and velvet –for no apparent reason
  • Combine or reimagine existing patterns to create something wholly unique

The skill level of a mad scientist can be hard to pin down, because some are drawn to complex designs, and some are drawn to simple, but the amount of knowledge they assimilate is huge!  A mad scientist is definitely more than a hobbyist.

Mad-Scientist-Quilting-Test

  1. The Magician

Unfortunately magician quilters don’t have the ability to blink their eyes twice and produce a perfect quilt.

Magician quilters are driven to create a feeling of magic in their quilted works of art.  Very often a magician quilter is drawn to

  • Landscapes
  • Romantic tableaus
  • Powerful imagery

A magician often combines elements of reality and romance because they take something real, like a landscape, and add a layer of imagery that could not exist in the real world.

Magicians also tend to combine elements of the other styles.  Elegance in colors schemes, striking patterns, multiple accessories and appliques, as well as the occasional “experiment-gone-wrong” can occur.

Magicians, like mad scientists, also have a skill level that is hard to determine.  Technical skill can be low – but the learning curve on each project can be steep.

Magician-Quilting-Test

Discover Your Style

What breed of creative fabric genius are you?

If one of those styles really clicked with you, then go ahead and skip to the next section – otherwise, you can take this test.

  1. What is your idea of a perfect day?

Is it taking a beach vacation, or going to the theater?  Do you like to spend time with your kids or do community projects?  Maybe the thing you most desire is a hot bath?

  1. What are your other hobbies?

For instance, do you do any woodworking?  Do you cook in your spare time?  Are you an OCD house-cleaner?  Do you garden?

  1. What are your three favorite colors?

Color combinations are essential to quilting.

  1. What is your tolerance for details?

Another way to look at this is, are you mechanical?  People who enjoy math and science, or are a little obsessive tend to be better at mechanical and technical trades – if you can’t even screw in a light-bulb, then your detail tolerance is most likely pretty low.

  1. How much do you enjoy learning new things?

Some people really enjoy learning something new every day.  Others are a little too busy, or simply enjoy doing things they know they’re good at.

 

Discover Your Skill-Level

There are several different skill levels, but we’ll stick with the three basics:

  1. Beginner
  2. Intermediate
  3. Advanced

As you grow and learn in your fabric art journey you will naturally evolve from complete beginner to whatever unique skill level best fits you.

It is possible, for example, to be an expert quilter, and yet be unable to complete certain patterns.

A good friend of ours, Barb, is an advanced quilter.  She is a brilliant artisan, an incredible seamstress, and yet she cannot do free-motion quilting.  Barb is continually turning out unbelievably complex patterns that we would never attempt, yet she always quilts in the ditch.

So don’t feel bad when there’s a project or technique that you just can’t get.  People’s minds work in different ways, and some things simply don’t channel.

Quilting and fabric art is supposed to be fun, a creative outlet, not a trial to your soul.

So, with that said, here’s some guidelines to determine your basic skill levels:

  1. How much experience with fabric and thread do you have?

Count everything here.

  • Embroidery – which is very helpful to understand applique and stained glass techniques
  • Clothes sewing – a seamstress will have very little difficulty adapting the “inside-out-and-backwards” thinking needed to do more complex precision patterns
  • Yarn arts – crochet and knitting takes a lot of technical knowledge, plus you have the ability to read and understand stylistic instructions
  • Mending – again, this can be useful for understanding applique, but it is also helpful in understanding basics like ripping out a seam and fabric types

You can build quite a lot of prowess from what you already know – so be careful to include your knowledge when considering a new pattern or project.

  1. How well do you read patterns?

Much like playing music, being able to read a pattern will vastly simplify learning new skills and making projects.

Most patterns, either on the title page or in the sales catalog, will have a difficulty rating.  So if you read a pattern and either understand it or are bewildered by it, look at the skill rating.

Of course, there are exceptions.  Much like a musician who plays by ear, a very few seamstresses will not read patterns at all – so make sure to take that (somewhat rare) possibility into account.

  1. Happy to be a Terminal Intermediate

There are a few fabric artists who will, eventually, ascend to the level of an advanced quilter, or even beyond that to true mastery.  These are the pattern-creators, the teachers, the gurus of our sphere.

For the most part, however, a truly dedicated fabric artist will settle somewhere in the intermediate category.

And that is all right.

Intermediate quilters tend to pick a trend they like, and stick there.

Whatever you are, and wherever you are, in your fabric art journey – make sure that it pleases you.  Fabric art isn’t one of those things that comes from suffering, but from joy.