WE SHINE THE SPOTLIGHT ON BETTY CHALKER AGAIN: SHE SHARES HER UPSIDE DOWN QUILTING PROJECT WITH US

Betty Chalker has shared some neat ideas with us before…..the latest one was the lovely Christmas table topper where she used the Janome Circular attachment to make a double scallop edging. We posted this in December 2014. Remember this?

Well Betty had another idea up her sleeve! She asked if we would like to see what she did with her mug rug……arising from a post where I shared mug rug ideas. Naturally I said a resounding Yes to Betty!

Here is what she made for us with BOBBIN WORK or her rather fun name for it: UPSIDE DOWN QUILTING. She has once again been most generous saying nothing is copyrighted and it is fun to share.  Thank you, Betty.

You may recognize the embroidery design……it is a quilting design on several of our Janome embroidery machines

Betty says she does not digitize so she used a straight stitch quilting design.  Here are her hints & tips for upside down quilting:

1. Hand wind thread onto a bobbin as tightly as you can. Always do a test to see if one bobbin will complete the design. If it does not, you can weave thread tails into the design and it does not show……just easier to have enough thread on the bobbin for one design.
2. Betty says she has what she calls a “play” bobbin case painted with nail polish so she knows which is which. She then loosens or tightens the little screw on this bobbin for creative sewing projects. She says it has prevented many of her students from having a “heart attack” at the thought of changing the tension on a regular bobbin case!
3. On the mug rug pic, Betty tells us she stitched the design twice to have a heavier build up of thread.
4. She used navy blue crochet thread on a yellow cotton fabric.

Here is a close up. Do we all understand that we are actually looking at the BOBBIN thread here? This thread is way too thick to be threaded up in the needle of the machine hence winding it onto a bobbin and then flipping the fabric UPSIDE DOWN so that the bobbin thread is really on the right or top side of the fabric when you are done.

 

This is a close up of the design stitching of the needle thread…..which is the under side of the project. I suppose you could flip the mug rug both ways of course but the intention is to show the thicker thread on the top!

Betty used a narrow navy binding around the edge of her mug rug and stitched it in place using the blind hem stitch with navy thread which has a pretty scallop effect.

Well, I think we owe Betty another round of applause …… a great idea beautifully stitched and shared with us all:  Another great mug rug idea.