Choosing the Perfect Thread Color for Your Quilt Design
Heather ThomasThe color of thread that you quilt your quilt with can make or break the quilt design, and that color choice can be tough if the fabrics you’re quilting with have multiple colors. In this video, Heather Thomas shows you how easy it can really be to choose the right thread. Remember: when in doubt on a color choice, choose a tone!
Sometimes when we're machine quilting, the hardest question isn't what I'm I going to quilt, it's what am I going to quilt with, what color. It's often the hardest choice. You can always be safe if you choose a tone. Now, to understand what a tone is, we'll look at these three threads. This is a pure hue.
It's unadulterated, simple. This is a shade, it's had black added to it. And this is a tone. A tone is always going to be duller than the others. And that dull tone is going to basically meld in to the surface of your fabrics.
Now, when I look at this fabric, here, or here, if this was my boarder fabric, what I see first is blue. Now certainly the green is making some noise. But it's the blue I see first. So I going to take these three threads and I'm going to lay them out on the surface, and I'm going to see which one I have the hardest time finding. And I going to do that by laying them flat on that surface, and pushing them into the surface.
And I'm going to look at it here. When I look here, the one I have the hardest time finding is the one closest to me, which is the tone. If I move them down here, to another area of the fabric I want to know if it's going to work down there also. So here I come down here, and I still thinking it's the tone, it's the one closest to me. This one is too bright, this one too dark.
So again, I'm going to come down here to the light area, the area that might be problematic. And with them all going across the light area, what I'm looking for is the one that is least noticeable. And here proof positive, that the one closest to me is the one least noticeable. And it is the tone. So when you are choosing threads for multi-colored fabrics, choose the color that is the one you see the most of and choose a tone or a grayed out version of that color.
And your stitch line is going to meld with the surface, and your mistakes are less likely to show and you're going to see the quilting itself rather than the thread. So when in doubt, choose a
When you see a spool of thread how do you know its a tone or a hue of a color. They don't put that info on the spool do they?
What if you have different color solid blocks, Would you use beige and wouldn't it show on the bright or dark colors
Thanks for this video, I was starting to work on a quilt today and of couse now I have a better knowledge of choosing the corret thread color Thanks, Agan. Denise M. Ocala, Fl
Loved this video! Would like to see more color samples, this might help myself and others. Thanks!