Zizgag applique is the fussiest thing I do. This is the most time consuming thing I do. Every so often I tell myself it’s too much work. It’s endless layers of stitching

So why do I always come back to it? I remind myself that nothing else looks like it. There are a number of reasons. Poly and rayon threads are incredibly beautiful. The grain of thread stitching leads itself to very tiny dashes of color that the eye blends on it’s own.

The process is one layer of color on top of another, in zigzag stitching. It takes forever.

The threads I’m using are a 40 or 30 weight thread. That means if you laid 40 threads side by side, they would measure one inch. They are very lightweight, but it allows us to stitch over and over the piece.

The thread color choices are almost unlimited. If feels like having a box of one thousand crayons. I actually added up what was on the chart of Madeira Poly Neon and found it was only 600. I don’t feel gypped.

Will other 40/30 weight threads work? Absolutely. Rayon too. I just wanted to show you how extensive the choices are.

Color charts always amaze me. But they really don’t tell us very much. They’re raw material like a shopping list. What matters is what we do with them. The choice of thread colors is a lecture on it’s own. I’ll spend several blogs with you talking about why I use the colors I do and where. I’ll also give a short tutorial on zigzag embroidery, zoning a pattern, and placing it into a quilt.

We’ll go behind the technique and explain the color choices in some future blogs. Follow along and I’ll show you what I can do with a thousand crayons.