thread choices

Eye Popping Color: Charting Color in Fantasy Mushrooms

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I’ve written a lot about color because I think a lot about color. I It fascinates me, from dye, to fabric to thread. I’ve been working on a batch of mushrooms for some new quilts and I decided to look at the colors through the color wheel just to codify what I was choosing.’

I’m not going to talk about color theory here, precisely. Instead I’m going to talk about relationships in color. Color theory can be deeply and obscurely discussed in millions of ways. I’ve seen it discussed as building blocks, tonal poems, wave lengths and light waves. I’m not sure how much of that is useful. I thought it might be helpful to simplify instead. I’m not dissing color theory. But I am trying to think about it differently.

I’m also not going to use color names. I want you to look at the relationships of the colors instead. But here’s the distinction I find most helpful. Color harmony has to do with how close colors are on the wheel. Contrast has to do with how far away they are. Harmony is of course beautiful. But contrast is what draws our eyes, It is what makes colors pop.

Contrasts come in several style. The colors themselves are their positions on the wheel. Darkened and lightened colors make the tones and tints. Then there is the clear colors. So for fun, sit back, get drunk on the colors and ignore the names. But look where the contrasts and the harmonies are in these color choices.

Notice the range of purples together that create a smooth section of colors and the yellow and greens that contrast. Notice the differences between the dark blues and purples and the lighter yellow and greens. The further distance colors are from each other, the stronger the contrast. The contrast creates the pop.

It’s not as simple as a recipe. It’s not what I was doing. But I did pick full swaths of colors next to each other with a few colors opposite from them. I also actively chose light/dark ranges for harmony and for contrast. It’s not about what we name colors. It’s about their relationship together. The very light green makes the sparkle on this ‘sroom. It looks white. But the green heightens the contrast.

Shading looks different than colors put side by side, but they still meld into each other. The eye blends thread colors that are sitting side by side.

Where are they going? They’re not in place yet, and I’m hoping for smaller frogs to go with, but bright kick ass mushrooms are exactly what I had in mind. I think I’m going to make it rain.

In process forest floor with mushrooms

I’m going to leave you with a small gift here. There are two color wheels here that I made for this blog, one empty and one fully colored. I invite you to use them to chart your own color on a project as you work. Down load them, print them up and use them to see how the colors you use chart up and relate to each other. And let me know what you find. It can be eye opening.

You are welcome to download these two pictures to chart your own colors!

Thread Colors to Dye For: How To Dye Threads for Shading

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I’m obsessed with thread shading. I want images to be as 3-d as possible. To do that I shade with as many colors as I can. With regular #40 embroidery thread, I can use almost an infinite number of colors to shade an image. Particularly for a larger image. It’s a pretty large paint box. And you can use them all.

With heavy weight bobbin threads, there’s just not that much space in an image to shade. So this is my answer. Instead of adding more and more colors, I dye the thread so that it’s got a range of color within each thread.

Most commercially dyed thread comes in one of two styles. Either they mix a dark color with a number of lighter shades ending in white. Or they do the rainbow either in pastels or brights. The rainbow color ones work for stippling. They don’t shade well at all. The ones with dark to white leave a white area I really don’t like.

Most images can be zoned in dark, medium and light areas. They also can be zoned into different colors, like the spots and the frog’s body.

Dyeing threads to shade images can be set up the same way. You can dye a shader, a shocker and a smoother. The shader thread is the color of your image darker than you want the whole image to be. Add in a dark shading color like dark brown, purple, green or blue, or it’s complement, plus 4-6 dark shades of the whole color. The shocker is a medium range of 5-6 colors with a shocking color mixed into it. Usually a bright complementer color works best as a shocker. The smoother is a color that is a bright highlighter shade that fills in the image and finishes in the shaded image.

The range of colors gives you at least a 15-18 color range in a small bobbin work image. Other colors can be added. There are no rules, but here are some color ranges that work well.

Shader: Dark orange, yellows and reds, and browns

Shocker: Yellows and two purples

Smoother: Yellows and oranges

Shader: Dark purples, blues and greys

Shocker: Medium greys and teals

Smoother: Medium to light purples

Shader: Teals, and oranges

Shocker: Yellows and teals

Smoother: Yellows, and oranges

You get the idea. Dye the thread to do your shading for you. As you fill in the stitching with rhythmic motions, the shading progresses across the image. All you have to do for thread like that is dye for it.

New Threads:

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There’s nothing like new threads. You know I love thread. It’s the most important component in my art. I love my fabric but I am nuts over thread.

One of the things that is different for me now that I am no longer on the circuit, is that I don’t have to make threads that are commercially saleable. I’m not constrained by that so I can explore threads that can’t be reproduced in regular quantities for students. I’ve used # 8 pearl cotton because it came in dye hanks. I could easily dye it for myself but also for also for students who were in my class and needed access to the threads I worked with.

#10 pearl cotton

Now that I just in my studio working my own art, I have the freedom to work with things that can’t easily be put up for sale. This last dye load, I dyed up a load of thread that I’m so excited by. I’m looking forward to trying out my #10 pearl cotton.

You can’t dye thread wound in a ball. You can hank it off with a swift, but there’s no way to make even skeins without counting accurately. Those of you who know me know how likely that is.

8 and 10 pearl cotton

The smaller ball is #8 pearl. The larger on is #10 pearl. The larger the number the smaller the thread. The #10 still needs to be worked in the bobbin case, but it will give a finer grain stitching. I’ve started the first row on this frog in the #10 so you can see how it stitches up. I am so excited!

frog in #10 pearl cotton

Sometimes a change in materials changes our work immensely. Sometimes it makes a little change. Sometimes it changes nothing. There’s no way to know until you work with things. But the possibilities make me giddy.

Skimming the Surface: Bobbin Work as Stippling: Part 4

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Fall Stream Detail

Up until now in this series, we’ve worked on images both in thick and thin threads, in zigzag and straight stitching. There’s one other place I use bobbin work. I use it for stippling.

Why? More of those wonderful beautiful difficult threads.

It’s no secret I’m a magpie. I love things that are shiny. And I always want to pull the eye across the quilt.

I often use Sliver, which I’ve shown you before, as a stippling thread. It’s fragile. It can be used with Sewer’s Aid and a #90 topstitching needle but it’s always easier to put it in the bobbin and match it with a polyester or rayon 40 weight. I’ll start with the lightest color around my light source, and shade outward one color after another. It helps define the light source, carry your eye across the piece and make it all shine.

I love sliver as a sky stipple or as water. So many colors! And so many ways to shift the color across the surface of the quilt.

Commander Koi

But sometimes I like to do something different with water though. I love sliver, but it doesn’t show up as well over organza or lace. So I like to use the #8 weight metallics, again in the bobbin. They make wonderful waves and rivulets. This is a thread you can use only in the bobbin. It defines the movement of water beautifully.

You can see everything from the back!

Everyone always worries about not being able to see from the back, but it ‘s not true. Here’s an unfinished piece almost ready for stippling. You can see the sun, the dragonfly and the rocks all on the back side, All you have to do is stipple.around them.

I hope this series leaves you excited and able to try all kinds of threads you thought were too hard or too difficult to work with in the bobbin. It’s a brand new world of possibilities, and beautiful choices.

Zigging Upended: Zigzag Machine Applique: Bobbin Work 3

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The last two posts we did looked at bobbin work for thick thread. This time we’ll look at a whole other reason to work from the bobbin and a whole different result.

Everyone loves metallic thread. It’s beautiful. I’ve heard it described as candy. I concur. That is until you start to stitch with it. There are a number of things that make it “easier” to work with metallic thread. But no one ever says it’s easy.

Why? If you look at the construction of metallic thread, it’s pretty obvious. Metallic thread comes in a twisted flecked thread, a metallic colored lurex wrapped around a core, and a thin strand of lurex. Either way, it’s thread made to be shredded. It’s not one solid strand of one thing. It’s a combination that uncombines with ease.

How do we get around that? Sewers Aid (silicon treatment for thread) and a number 90 topstitching needle help. But the easy answer is to put it in the bobbin and work from behind.

I know. I know. I can hear you screaming “What????” at me through the computer screen. Sensibly enough. But any time my thread goes through the top of my machine, it goes through the needle 50 times. It gets pulled up through the bobbin once. Are you wondering why your thread broke? It’s so much easier to put the breakable thread in the bobbin.

Madeira Supertwist Metallic Thread

For this, I used #40 weight metallic thread. I really like Madeira’s Supertwist for it’s color and shine and the color range. So we don’t need an adjusted bobbin case. We can use the regular bobbin case. But we still want to match the needle thread color to the metallic thread color. You will see both threads on the right surface of the quilt.

I do these most often as appliques. Why? Because they really pucker up. The distortion on zigzag stitching is ferocious. I make the same sandwich as last week, my drawing on Totally Stable, Stitch and Tear, felt, and hand dyed fabric.

I’ve talked a lot in this blog about free motion zigzag stitching. What matters is the angle that the fabric goes through the machine. Straight through gets a thick clunky line. At an angle gets you a very nice outline. Going from side to side gets you a great shading stitch. All out of the same zigzag.

I started by zoning my piece so I know the areas where the color changes.

I began with a black out line zigzag. Then I built my colors in, first with an outline, then the shading and then that clunky line to smooth it out, one shade after another, starting from dark to light. The last color I put on will be the color I see the most.

Here’s the process shots for this frog.

  • spots
  • spots from back
  • outline
  • green shading
  • purple shading
  • turquois shading
  • medium green
  • lighter green
  • medium purple
  • lightest green
  • soft purple stomach
  • apricot shading
  • light yellow
  • finished frog

After I’ve stitched it completely, the stitching lay flat, but the area around it ruffled like a party dress. I cured the whole thing by simply cutting off the background.

To apply it to my quilt, I stitched it down with the same black thread outline, run through at an angle to make a great smooth edge.

What is the difference between thin thread and thick thread?

Thick Thread

Bobbin Case Only

Adjusted Bobbin Case

Always Abstracted by Stitching

Puckers Up Some

Thin Thread

Use in Needle or Bobbin Case

Regular Bobbin Case

Can Be More Detailed and Shaded

Puckers Up Mightily

The other major reason to use bobbin work with thin thread is because you can tie up the ends on the back. Every time you clip your threads from the front, there’s two thread ends poking up. For multiple layers of stitching, that can make the whole piece look fuzzy. I always prefer to work from the back and tie my ends up from behind, to keep them out of sight. This works just as well for poly/and or rayon threads as well. These moths were done upside down as well, but with poly threads only.

Don’t be afraid to work upside down! You’ll find all kinds of threads that have been fiends are now your best friends.

Topsy Turvy: The Wonders of Thick Thread: Bobbin Work Part Two

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Thick metallic thread and pearl cotton bobbin work make up the heron

Do you like instant gratification? But of course! Using thick thread in the bobbin is showy, exciting and quick as machine embroidery goes. It’s one of my favorite techniques.

Bobbin work is the only way I know to free motion with thick threads. I’m defining thick threads as #3-8 threads. What those numbers mean is that if you put 8 threads side by side, they would make an inch. This is what thread count means.

adjusting a bobbin case

Thick threads can’t fit through the needle. They do fit easily in an adjusted or bypassed bobbin case. How do you know what kind of machine you have. If you open up your bobbin and it’s in a little silver housing that comes out of the machine, that’s a bobbin case. For thick thread, you loosen the bobbin case by turning the screw about 3/4 of a turn to the left. It’s best to have a separate bobbin case for the purposes. Bobbin cases get old, so it’s never a bad idea to buy a fresh one and make your new bobbin case your true bobbin case. Mark the old one with nail polish, and keep it just for thick thread.

If your bobbin just drops into a housing in your machine, it can be bypassed. You simply don’t put it into tension. No need to adjust anything.

I tend to keep extra bobbins to hold and store thread I’ve wound off. One bobbin per thread. If I don’t use it for one project, I’m bound to use it for another.

Never wind a bobbin on top of thread on the bobbin. It messes terribly with your tension.

I usually stitch on a similar fabric to the background, or one that matches the color of the embroidery. Don’t fool yourself. IT WILL SHOW!

a different frog, zoned

Your image is always backwards. Think of it as a slide. You can see it through either side. I use Totally Stable as my patterns, drawn with marker. It irons on but the excess will tear away.

Stitching in a creature is like coloring with different crayons. I pick black as my outline, and then I zone my drawing. On this frog, there’s a tummy zone, a stripe zone, an eye zone, and the basic body.

I choose my darkest thread in that zone first, the color I want to be dominate. I add a shader color, usually purple, brown or a complement to the color. Then I go through a range of the color, dark to light, and add a shocker color, usually the complement right before the last lightest color.

eye colors in sliver

The eye is always done in sliver thread so it’s shiny and wet. I use black for the pupil, an iris color, and iridescent white for the spark.

Eye

Here’s a progression of stitching and thread on this frog

  • thread one green zone
  • thread two green zone
  • thread three green zone
  • thread four green zone
  • thread five green zone
  • thread one stripe zone
  • thread two striped zone
  • finished frog on background

Some basic things about thick thread bobbin work:

Only work with a straight stitch: Zigzag stitching tends to sew your piece to your needle plate and jam your machine.

When you fill in your stitching, remember that the thick thread fills up more space than the thinner thread on top. Leave a little space.

Pick a #40 weight embroidery thread for the top thread. I like polyester, for it’s strength. You should either match the color to your bobbin thread, or like the mix of them together. You will see both on the front of your piece.

New project, new needle! New day, new needle! I use #90 topstitching needles because they’re strong and have a large eye that reduces thread breakage.

Midnight Stroll

I could stitch directly into my top as well. It integrates better into the background, but it tends to distort things. If an image is under three inches square, I may well embroider right on the surface.

frog cut out and ready to go

But if it’s a big enough image, It’s better done on a separate sandwich of felt, Tear Away, Totally Stable and suitable hand dye to match. It can be appliqued onto the surface and will look like it belongs perfectly

Don’t be afraid to be upside down. Bobbin work makes the most impressive images quickly and easily.

Setting Up Shimmer: Moving Color Across the Quilt

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Stippling with flecked metallic

The natural world is full of shimmer. Shimmer is about the change of color, and the change of light. The nature of nature is variance.

How can we create that? How do we build a world inside our art? How do we create the illusion of shimmer and light?

Here are several good ways to accomplish that.

Owl at Sunset process shots.

Hand dyed fabric itself establishes the play of color that nature features. But it’s a soft finish and a soft shimmer. It gives the background of shifting color, and a good glow, but it doesn’t catch the light.

Another way is to put sheers in layers over the the hand dye. It changes the color without losing the fabric beneath it. It shifts the shade underneath and adds texture.

I know some people don’t like the idea of the stipple. But stippling creates more texture and plays against the surface of the quilt. Particularly if your threads shine.

I’ve always found it helpful to separate the kinds of threads I use for field and ground. Different threads offer difference in the shine of the surface. Having a different shine for water, for air, for sunlight, and for your creatures helps your eye to sort those out from each other.

There are three kinds of metallic thread that offer different levels of shine.

Madeira Supertwist Metallic Thread

Fish done in flecked metallic

The soft sheen of Madeira Supertwist gives the fish a scale like sheen that is totally different from either the sliver or the thick metallic threads. That sheen separates the fish from the background, the field from the ground.

Sliver like threads
Stippling with sliver

Sliver, Glimmer, and other flat metallic threads are the most shiny. They look like Christmas tinsel. They come in a myriad of colors, particularly if you are willing to mix different brands. There’s no problem doing that.

YLI Candlelight, Madeira Glamour and Superior Razzle Dazzle are # 8 weight heavier metallic threads. Again, the company brands can be easily used together. These threads have a thick chunky look that is strong and works with rhythmic stitching as beautiful running water. Stitching through a range of color accentuates the light and shadow within the piece. It’s not quite as shiny as sliver, but it makes a strong statement.

You can see the separation between the air and the water in the changes between sliver and thick metallic.

Both sliver threads and thick threads should be used in the bobbin only.

I use all of these threads to make light shimmer across my quilt. And I choose a full range of colors to pull the eye across the surface. And to make the eye track the differences between field and ground by the amount of shine in the threads.

Another Fine Mess: Globbing: What’s on Your Floor?

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‘

Dragonflyl Mountain

What’s on my studio floor? Thread! I collect large wads of thread ends. It’s just what happens when you’re embroidering by machine. It’s everywhere, but it pools it places on the floor. It is pretty It seems like a waste, but like most things, it doesn’t have to be.

Threads

Let’s be clear about this. You can save all your thread ends, if you want. But they aren’t all the same. The threads you sewed your jeans with are probably not going to be pretty in an art quilt, unless you want a pretty rough looking texture. I save thread ends that are either poly or rayon, or more wonderfully thick#8 metallic like Candelight, Razzel Dazzel or Glamour. Or Sliver like threads. For me, this is all about the shine.

Nesting Ladies

What does that do for your quilt? It makes a floor of it’s own. Nature is messy. There’s all kinds of bits of things, on the forest floor, or at the bottom of a pond. A nice blob of thread looks a lot like that. It puts in a bottom without a hard line.

So you have this wonderful glob of thread. It’s pretty. You want it on your quilt. How are you going to stick it on?

Angelina moon

You can glue it. Steam a Seam will hold it down. You can trap in angelina fiber. It’s a beautiful addition to a moon.

You still have to stitch it down. If you try to just stitch it down with a darning foot, it will trap your foot and make you crazy. It makes me crazy.

My best answer is to put something over it. Some folk use tulle. It dulls the colors. I prefer using a corn starch film, like Aquafilm or Solvy. I pin it over the glob, and stitch it down. When you’re finished, spritz it with water until it disappears. Problem solved.

Hunters Moon 2

Globbing makes a beautiful addition to a quilt. And it uses up all that pretty thread.

A Thousand Crayons: Color Theory For Thread

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Moth made of zigzag freemotion zigzag applique

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.

Eye of the moth’s wing

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.

Madeira Poly Neon thread. My favorite go to.

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.

‘Both owl and bug are zigzag embroidered applique in poly and rayon threads.

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.