Typography Challenge and Aurifil Review (finally)

Two birds, one stone, and one new quilt dog.

 Well, technically only one bird (on the pillow), but really, I'm talking about the Typography Challenge + my Aurifil review, the 'Create' pillow and Miss Melody.

I wanted to do a thorough review of the Aurifil threads on one piece of work. The colours I had most of were blue and orange, hence the palette here. I started off with Cotton 40 weight, number 4655, or as I prefer to call it, Blueberry Frappe.

That is one place where Aurifl falls down - the naming conventions. You can't really catch up with your quilting-homies and say "Sistah, you KNOW how much I love number 4331. For real!" So I'm sorry Mr Alex. I'm renaming them.

Meet Blueberry Frappe (4655), Cool Lagoon (3770), Buttercup sunshine (2130), Royal Sapphire (2745), Orange Jewel and Blood Orange (8245).

Excuse the photo quality. Inside night shots... Ugh.


Aurifil comes in 4 weights. For a thread noob like me, it was quite puzzling. And I'm much better with numbers than colours. So (I want this as a little chart above my machine - hint hint Mr Alex):
The Red Spools - heavy thread. 12 weight. The Orangerie one was wool and broke a few times in my machine - we can blame my tension settings if you like - but I LOVED the effect. In fact, the thicker the thread, the happier I was with the look. GREAT for hand quilting. Love it.


The Grey Spools - medium threat. 28 weight. LOVELY for quilting motifs you really want to stand out. Probably not so much for backfilling detail.
The Green Spools - 40 weight - great for quilting. Lovely weight - not too thick, not too thin. I think this is my hands-down favourite for anything and everything weight.
The Orange Spools - 50 weight - good for piecing. And pretty much everything else.
(The two heavier weights did leave a bit of fluff in my machine, but I guess that is to be expected).

I used visofliex and free-motion stitched the applique shapes on, then I outlined them all. I started off with Blueberry Frappe but quickly decided that it would be happier with satin stitched patterns than free-motion lines. Too much variance for the look I wanted. So I moved to using Cool Lagoon.

Besides the appliqued shapes, I drew a few shapes in Frixion pen (write on, iron off) and quilted densely around them. There's a real hodge-podge of free-motion quilting styles in there. From paisley to spirals, to feathers, to McTavishing... I may have gone overboard, but I love it.

Have I mentioned that I LOVE that heavy wool Blood Orange? The only non-Aurifl thread in there is the green (shh, don't tell!). I didn't have any (and we are Aurifil impoverished in WA).

So just for some more gratuitous photos of my latest masterpiece ...

 and my latest quiltmodel.

"Sigh. What am I supposed to be doing?"

"What? Just look up? Huh?"

"This is such a drag..."

 And my stralitzia which is looking pretty special at the moment.

If you've made it this far, congratulations. You deserve a prize. Or the chance at one.
I'm still hurting from the postage of the last giveaway (shares in Australia Post, anyone?) so I will give my last 3 packs away - 2 to Australians, and 1 to overseas. You just have to name the threads in one of these packs. Probably not the front one cos I've already named two of those. Hehehe... Don't say I don't make you work for it.