Thread Talk from My Sewing Machine #2

Hello, welcome to another installment of Thread Talk!

When Diane Gaudynski talked about the Tuscany Wool Batt in her book, I immediately had my local Bernina dealer order some wool batt for me to try. And I was not disappointed! My “Pieceful Garden” is an example of a quilt quilted with the Tuscany Wool batt:

This is what the back looks like – my feathers were all free-handed:

When using batting for quilts, home machine quilters are looking for the batting to be light-weight, and ease of maneuverability under that little neck of our home machine. In my experience, Hobbs‘ Tuscany Wool batting (or wadding for the UK quilters) meets my requirements of those factors. All the pictures you see in this post are quilts quilted with Tuscany Wool batting.

A few points on the Tuscany 100% Wool batting:

1. One question I get asked a lot is whether the wool batt is washable. The answer is yes! Hobbs’ website state that the wool they use for this batting is made with the “very best super wash wool”.

2. Yes, it is breathe-able too!

3. Diane Gaudynski was the one who introduced me in her book to achieve a faux trapunto effect by using the batting. The batting has a good loft, and so, if it is quilted densely around a motif, the motif literally POPS!

[Pretty Pillow in Bernina’s Through the Needle magazine]

4. It is light and airy. So, getting it all under the machine is not un-manageable. And you won’t feel like you are dragging a load if you are working with a bigger project.

5. I love to use wool batt with applique because quilting around the applique pieces also makes my applique pieces pop.

[French Bouquet – a project to be published]

6. Because the batting is lofty, you would want to make sure you have the batting smoothed out very evenly when you are sandwiching your quilt layers or else you will have to deal with quilting down excess lumps here and there. I gently pull the edges when I am smoothing out the batt over my backing fabric.

[The “Swag Motif” in my Ivory Spring quilt is published in Quiltmaker‘s Quilting Motif Vol.7.]

7. If your entire quilt is densely quilted even in your borders, chances are after you are done, your quilt will look a little wonky, and wouldn’t lay flat in some places. What I do is I lay the quilt on the floor, spritz and wet the quilt to shape the quilt, while patting down the quilt to make it lay flat. I let my quilt dry over night, sometimes two days (provided my 17 month-old doesn’t bother it).

8. Whatever you do, do NOT handle the quilt when it is not totally dry. I did that once on a wholecloth I had spent hours and hours and hours quilting to put on the binding because I was running late — BAD IDEA with DISASTROUS result! Don’t ever do it.

[My original quilting motif as appeared in Sentimentally Yours – click here to download the motif for free!]

9. If you are working on a marked wholecloth, don’t spritz the quilt to see what it looks like without the markings while you are working on the quilt. Did that too… same conclusion — BAD BAD BAD IDEA with DISASTROUS result.

[This is actually the back of the quilt of my Song of Williamsburg Wallhanging remix. Click here to see the front. All feathers were free-handed except for the center motif.]

10. I love the fact that my quilt doesn’t turn into a cardboard after it is densely quilt with wool. It is soft, and has a very nice feel to it. So, if you are planning to do dense quilting, you might consider giving wool a try!

I hope you have found this post helpful! I want to thank you for stopping by. A BIG “Thank You” goes to Diane Gaudynksi for her continuing education on free motion quilting using the home machine – she is my heroine and inspiration! By the way, you have her books on order yet?

That’s it for now. Tune in next time when I will be sharing with about the other Tuscany battings! Ta-dah!