This month’s Island Batik Challenge is one that is sponsored by one of the industry partners, Aurifil thread. I used many weights of the threads and will show you them all! The fabric, thread and batting were given to me by Island Batik and their partners, Aurifil Thread and Hobbs Batting.

First, making up my mind was hard. I had a lot of ideas but this tulip kept coming back to my mind. I really wanted to do something, but what??? As I was thinking about it, I decided to take a look at a Bluprint* class called “Threadpainting Essentials for Photo Realistic Quilts” by Pam Holland. Well, that it set it in motion and the quilting began.

First, I printed my photo on the grey Island Batik. Island Batik solids are perfect for this as they are so smooth. I didn’t what it to be as intense as the picture, mostly because the available threads were not so intense. The fabric was backed with a fusible web made for printing by called PrintNFuse*. It is really lightweight and it performed perfectly.

I the fused the photo to a red batik background. In hindsight, I didn’t love the background so you will see what I did later. Sandwiching the quilt was next; I used a leftover piece of grey batik for the back and a piece of the Hobbs bleached cotton batting*.

A Schmetz 110/18 Chrome Universal needle was put in the machine and a Grey 50wt Aurifil in the bobbin. I started sewing.

I worked first with the 12 wt. threads, the Lana Wool and the Cotton in the Dark Carmine Red color. I was surprised how happy my machine was. Then, I proceeded to the the next sets of thread, the Cotton 28 wt, 50 wt, 40 wt and 80 wt. I was hoping as it got finer, the red would change. It mostly worked. As I said, this red was not so intense, so I know this will not be an exact replication of my photo. My Bernina 440 loved the threads, and the only adjustments I made was using a darning foot #29 and lowered the foot pressure to 20 from its normal 40. It was really easy to do!

Next up, I didn’t have yellow. So, I decided to use the two 50 wt. orange shades I had for the yellow, one for the darker bits #2318 and a variegated for the other parts, #4150. The purple blue was a 40wt. cotton, #1200. I loved the way this one looked.

Then, I thought some variegated black/grey/white, a 50wt #4652, might do the trick with the red in matchstick….NO! I didn’t like it so I was off to figure it out.

In the end, I decided to make it just about the tulip and not mess with the background. NOW I am traveling as you read this, so I didn’t have time to redo the piece. So, I trimmed it down and fused a frame on the piece. I added some blanket stitching around the edges of the frame with a black #40 wt cotton that is 3 ply and meant for machine quilting. I loved the way this worked and the definition the thread gave to the blanket stitch.

All in all I used 7 weights of Aurifil thread and 12 different spools to complete this project! The table below shows them all!

As I was rushing, I didn’t take tons of pictures but, you will see this again. You see, I am not an artist, but I feel like one with this. There is another picture I love, but as this was an Aurifil challenge I needed the threads to be from Aurifil. I will do this again. It was fun and fast and a great way to use a favorite picture for a fill in the lines with stitching! Check out my fellow ambassadors too…here is a link to all of them.

“Interior Beauty”
6 1/2″ x 7 1/2″
Original photo by Kathleen McCormick
Island Batik Grey
Aurifil threads (see chart)
Hobbs Heirloom Bleached White Cotton Batting

Coming Up on the Blog:
Island Batik Artsy Fartsy Challenge – July 27
Sew Let’s QAL Block 11 – July 30
Dream to Reality

Linking Up With:
UFO Bustin #67
July UFO/WIP Link Up
What I Made Monday
Wednesday Wait Loss
Favorite Finish Monthly Linkup
2019 FAL Quarter 3 Finishes

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