Tuesday Tips #2

Last week I was raving about chunky hand-quilting accents with Perle Cotton, but I was ranting about the thickness of Perle 5, which turns relaxing hand-quilting into finger pain and frustration. However, after writing that post last Tuesday night, I woke up on Wednesday and had a little time to quilt before getting ready for work. My hands were slightly clammy making the tugging war simply impossible to win. Then…ding…light bulb. Sitting on my sewing desk were my quilting gloves (which really are all-purpose work gloves from Home Depot, but they work great) and as soon as I put one on my left hand and got to stitching, I was pulling stitches through with only little resistance and a firm grip. While I would still suggest using Perle 8 as recommended by most quilters, Perle 5 works pretty well in a pinch assuming you have a left-handed rubberized glove to pull you through. My hand-stitching came along very quickly after that discovery. Perhaps now all my leftover Perle 5 won’t go to waste. Phew! This tip was just too good to keep to myself.

Three cheers for the rubber gloves!

Check back tomorrow to see the finished product. I can't wait to share!

Tuesday Tips #1

So here I am, ready to give you a quilting tip (I feel so under-qualified!)

Use Perle Cotton for some very cute chunky hand-quilting detail. I love the way it's made my Day at the Zoo quilt look even more fun and cozy. It's especially well suited for baby quilts because it reminds me of Crayon lines. Not perfectly even, but bold and playful. I just love it, especially with the contrasting colors. Plus Perle Cotton has a shiny, silky quality that gives the quilt some nice texture. Try it out on your next quilt. You will love it!

But learn from me here, don't use Perle Cotton 5 like I did! Use Perle 8 like all the sane quilters of the world. Once again my laziness (and frugality) got the best of me and I just grabbed the Perle 5 that I could easily find at Michael's. They didn't have Perle 8 in the colors I wanted and I wasn't keen on paying for shipping. So I just went with Perle 5 totally ignoring what Nova (I love that name!) over at a cuppa and a catch up wrote after she had a rough time quilting with Perle 5. Let me tell you, I totally agree with her. I can't feel the side of my left index finger after all that tugging on the needle just to get the fatty thread through. It is not pleasant to quilt with! Listen to Nova! Listen to me! It may look cute, but by the time you finally thread your needle (~5 minutes of utter frustration) and start yanking away at your thread, you'll be regretting that you didn't just pay the shipping and wait patiently for Perle 8. Do your poor little index finger a favor and learn from my laziness (I sense this might be a theme for Tuesday Tips).