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The bling is the thing when quilting with Spotlite thread!

by Allison Spence

This week it’s all about thread with sparkle and bling, focusing on WonderFil’s metallic thread, Spotlite. Yesterday I talked about how to combine metallic thread (Spotlite) and polyester thread (Fabulux) for adding strength and shine to your quilting, and how to set both threads up on a domestic and a longarm machine.

Here’s my latest quilting project, a panel with some beautiful angels that I bought a few years ago. With all this talk about sparkle, shine and bling, I thought it’s time to get it quilted using WonderFil’s Spotlight. At the same time, it’s ideal to show a variety of quilting techniques, here we go…

Panel of angels before quilting

Panel of angels before quilting

I’m quilting this angelic panel on my longarm, and loaded a light color backing and used a very thin cotton batting for stability and a wool batting for texture.

Begin by stabilizing the quilt with with WonderFil's DecoBob #115, Taupe

Stabilizing quilting using WonderFil’s DecoBob #115, Taupe

I began the project by using WonderFil’s 80wt polyester thread, DecoBob to quilt foundation or stabilizing lines. I used the same thread top and bottom, DB115, Taupe.

The stitch length for these lines can be quite short. I’ve set my longarm stitch length to 13 stitches per inch. The stitch length and the thread color blend beautifully and give some texture to the quilt.

Choose thread colors by laying the strands on the quilt.

Choose thread colors by laying the strands on the quilt.

I then collected the most appropriate thread colors from my box of threads. I’ve settled on a few golds and browns as well as a blue and gray. Notice the small spool of ice blue in the middle? I loved it so much that the small spool wasn’t enough and had to go buy more. My advice, is always get the larger spool. You’ll never run out!

I find that just looking at the spools can be misleading. Always unwind a length and lay it on the quilt. You’ll get a much better idea of how that thread will look on the quilt.

Spotlite shade card

Spotlite shade card

Look at all the pretty colors of WonderFil’s Spotlite! I found I used Ice Blue #8831 a lot on the angel wings.

WonderFil's Spotlite thread in metallic tubes

WonderFil’s Spotlite thread in metallic tubes

WonderFil Spotlight threads are available in 40 different colors in 2 sizes of spools. The smaller 164yd [150m] cops can be purchased as single spools or in metallic tubes containing 9 different sets of 4.

The larger spools contain 1093yd [1000m] of thread.

Outline stitching with WonderFil's metallic thread, Spotlite

Outline stitching with WonderFil’s metallic thread, Spotlite

And then I began to stitch. Slow and steady wins the game. I changed my regulated stitch length to 10 stitches per inch so that the metallic threads would shine. I used my collection of Spotlite to outline each of the different pieces on the quilt.

Outline with different colors of WonderFil's metallic thread, Spotlite.

Outline with different colors of WonderFil’s metallic thread, Spotlite.

Using a fine solid color polyester or cotton thread would have been fine on this quilt. However, using metallic thread like Spotlite takes this quilt from looking good to looking fantastic!

Stitch over the printed design on a panel to create sparkle.

Stitch over the printed design on a panel to create sparkle.

As you can see by my stitching, it doesn’t have to be perfect! The idea is to add that bling, sparkle and texture to the quilt by choosing areas to quilt with the metallic thread.

I had stitched the straight lines at the beginning of this project using WonderFil’s DecoBob 80wt thread. It outlined the panel nicely, but something had to be done with the golden scroll. I simply followed the general outline of the scroll with gold metallic thread.

More sparkle with WonderFil's metallic thread, Spotlite

More sparkle with WonderFil’s metallic thread, Spotlite

This week’s posts are all about WonderFil’s metallic thread Spotlite. It’s all about the shine and sparkle. I’ve given you some tips for using this thread on your domestic and your longarm machine. I’ve shown you some projects using just Spotlite and combining it with a selection of other threads.

Join me tomorrow, I’ll to show you one more project and how I do a raw edge applique using WonderFil’s metallic thread, Spotlite.

The bling is the thing when quilting an angelic panel using WonderFil's Spotlite thread.

The bling is the thing when quilting an angelic panel using WonderFil’s Spotlite thread.

This is part 4 of 5 in this series.
Go back to part 3: Quilting with metallic and polyester threads paired for strength and shine

Go to part 5: How metallic thread Spotlite enhances free motion applique

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