Aurifil Artisan Challenge for February

This month’s Aurifil Artisan February challenge focuses on my favourite thread weight.

My absolute favourite has to be the 50 weight thread, identified by the orange spool colour. This fabulous strong but thin thread is available in an incredible 270 different colours!

The 50 weight thread is my go-to for so many techniques including English paper piecing, hand applique, machine piecing, machine blanket stitch applique and paper foundation piecing. The thread is very strong and can withstand the fine, tight stitching when joining hexagons together but it is so fine that the stitches disappear.  

The fine nature of the thread also means that machine pieced seams sit very flat and neat when pressed. Machine pieced blocks will turn out much more accurately when you use 50 weight thread.  This means all your measurements will add up!

I recently completed machine piecing a new quilt in the beautiful Tilda range called “Chic Escape”. The fabric features gorgeous florals in rich autumnal colours as well as classic urns and beautiful peacocks.

I used the perfect cream 50 weight thread to make my quilt. Colour #2000 is a gorgeous light cream. A slightly darker colour #2312 is also a great versatile piecing choice. I always balance the thread weight in my machine by winding the same thread on the bobbin for perfect stitching.

My quilt is a combination of two blocks.  The first is simply four squares with a cross through the middle and a little centre square.  To add more detail, the second block is made of four little 4-patch cross blocks with the same cross and centre square proportions as the first block. Lots of machine piecing, which I enjoy.  

The blocks were looking rather busy when I laid them out so my choice of sashing was a light cream spot which toned down the busyness and added some relief to the design. A plain pink border and then a gorgeous Tilda floral complete the quilt.

My quilt was beautifully professionally edge to edge quilted in a gorgeous fleur di lis style pattern by Leanne Harvey of Mount Vincent Quilting. Now to sew the binding on!