Quilting Slash Stars and Dyeing Fabric Fun

Published: Wed, 10/22/14

News from Leah Day
HiĀ ,

Fall is in full swing and we're quickly nearing the end of our year long Building Blocks quilt along. Luckily I've been hard at work at our next quilt along project and thought I'd share some sneak peeks today!

This Dancing Butterfly Quilt will feature loads of designs, again taught in a Quilt-As-You-Go format that will make it easy to quilt on any size sewing machine.

We'll be kicking off this fun new project starting in December so keep your ears open for news about this new pattern coming soon to LeahDay.com!
Dealing with Loose Threads
One of the unavoidable side effects of quilting is thread breaks. Every time you start and stop quilting, you'll end up with two loose threads on your quilt. How do you tie off these threads securely so your quilting stitches don't come out?

Personally I like to tie off my threads and bury them into the middle layer of my quilt. After I finish quilting and break thread, I gently tug on the top thread to bring the bobbin thread up to the surface and tie them both in a knot. Then I pop both threads into a Cheater Needle, a special needle designed to be threaded quickly from the top.

Next insert the needle exactly where the threads are coming out of the quilt and run it about 1 inch through the batting layer of the quilt. Pull the needle out and give the threads a gentle tug, the knot gets pulled into the middle layer of the quilt and the threads are perfectly secure.
The benefit of this method of tying off is it's totally seamless - you can't see or feel any sign of the thread break from either side of the quilt. Other methods of securing, like building up thread in one place, always result in a noticeable bump that feels and looks unsightly on the surface of the quilt.

To keep my cheater needle handy so it's easy to grab and hide threads on the go, I keep it on a Pin Place, a small magnetic pincushion so I always know exactly where it is and it doesn't get lost in a big wad of pins and needles in my bigger pincushions.

New Articles from the Free Motion Quilting Project
#437 - Learn how to Free Motion Quilt Unloaded Boxes - It's new free motion design time! This design is quite masculine with lots of straight lines and sharp angles.

51. Quilt Superstar in a Slash Star - The official pattern design calls for a Super Star, but again Josh has decided to break the rules completely and fill his with Super Spiral. Which do you like best?

52. - Quilt Pebbles and Spirals in a Slash Star - As with all the Slash Stars, the quilting guides don't really fit exactly with this imperfect quilt block so make sure to watch my video to see how I fit the designs so nicely within the star.

Dyeing Experiments! - Check out some lovely photos of my latest dyed fabrics. I am especially proud of the green fabrics I've created, which I've dubbed "poison" fabric, pictured below.
Whew! That's it for another busy week full of fun free motion quilting. If you have any questions about anything in this newsletter, click here to contact us.

Let's go quilt,

Leah Day