Behind the Seams: Sonar

Behind the Seams is a series where I breakdown the fabric and quilting in a quilt I made. 

The Fabric Pull

Sonar has two blocks, and instead of using different fabrics in each block, I used the same fabrics, but changed the gradient direction to distinguish each block and create visual interest. 

Art Gallery Fabrics PURE solids
Block A, Fabrics A-F: lakefront, tile blue, Maldives, Cozumel blue, mirage blue and fresh water
Block B, Fabrics G-L: the same as Block A, but in reverse order
Fabric M, O: nocturne 
Fabric N: white linen

The Reality: My seam allowance and I had a bad day

When I was sewing these blocks, I didn't realize how off my seam allowance was until I tried sewing the blocks together and found my seams weren't aligning with each other. 

yellow arrows - good alignment, yay!
red arrows - disappointment, sob

One of the reasons why I originally added sashing between the blocks was to try to help hide some of those micro misalignments between blocks, but my blocks were well past that tolerance. No sashing was going to hide those sins. 

I was pretty devastated and frustrated with myself because it looked so obvious to me and I thought I had levelled up enough that sewing these curves wouldn't be an issue (I was wrong). 

~~Interlude~~

One of my quilting mantras is 'There will always be another quilt'. Would you expect a painter to paint a masterpiece every single time? No. So why do we expect that every quilt will be perfect? We make mistakes, and that's okay because we learn and move onto the next quilt. 

BUT when we do make mistakes, that quilt becomes the perfect canvas to try the big bold ideas that were too scary before to risk ruining the quilt. The quilt is already "screwed up" - give yourself creative permission to fail, take the bold idea and run with it! And if it doesn't work out - make another quilt. 

The Quilting

So my seams didn't align, and that put this quilt firmly in the "try big bold ideas" category. For me, that manifested as: (1) try using variegated thread for the first time and  (2) try using 28 wt thread. I had never used 28 wt as a primary thread before, and combining it with the variegated thread was distinctly out of my comfort zone. 

My original quilting plan was to use the same quilting design that I had used on the cover version of Sonar, but this time I would quilt over the sashing line to reduce the number of threads that would need burying later on. 

For the cover Sonar, I spaced my quilt lines 1/2" apart, but hesitated using the same spacing with this one because I thought it would draw even more attention to my misaligned seams. 

Example of how the quilting lines would look at the mismatched seams. 

My solution was to try going even denser with the quilting (~3/8") with the hope that the eye would be pulled along the quilting lines and glaze right over the mismatched seams. 

This was also one of the benefits of using 28 wt thread. 28 wt doesn't stand in the back chorus line - it demands to be seen and take a bow for the credit that is due. 

And I think the plan worked! It's not instantly obvious that there is a 1/2" mismatch here because the eye has been given something else to look at. 

I ended up using the super dense quilting for one set of blocks, and the normal spacing with the other set. This helped create visual distinction between the two blocks. 

Variegated thread

Before landing on variegated thread, I was struggling on what thread colour to use because I typically don't like light thread on dark fabric or vice versa - but given that I had a gradient in my fabric already, one of those things was going to happen. Variegated thread actually felt like a good compromise because I would get a mix of both worlds and balance those areas.

I have to be honest though - variegated thread still wasn't at the top of my list to try, but when I found a spool of 28 wt 4654 thread from an old Aurifil Artisan welcome package and it perfectly matched my fabric pull, the scientist in me couldn't back down from the experiment. Would I have preferred to stay in the safety zone of 50 wt at least? Yes, but 28 wt was what I had. 

From a distance, I think it turned out absolutely wonderfully!

However, there were two things that really bothered me about how the variegated thread quilted.

1. (purple arrows, below) Unintentional patterning
This happened a couple of times where it looks like I'm alternating between lines of different dark and light threads. Variegated thread strength is that it looks random, and so when order appears (even though it's also random in nature), it looks out of place. It also doesn't help that when it happens on the light fabric - that's just asking me to learn a lesson in patience. 

2. (orange arrows, below) Obvious turning points 
This happened quite often: by the time I reached the end of a line, my thread colour was the opposite colour value of the fabric beneath it, and so my turning point became a super obvious U-turn. Now, I could have mitigated this by stopping and burying the thread at the end of each line, but I had made so many mishaps in this quilt already, that it wasn't worth the amount of time it would take me to do that. 

However - it's good to remember for when I use variegated thread on a non-experimental quilt.

All said - I have seen some beautiful quilting done with variegated thread, and would be open to trying it again. 

Make it pop

This quilt reminds me of water and ocean waves, and oceans have so many more colours than just blue. I love using Aurifil 7001 neon yellow to add a pop of colour to my quilting. 

The Binding & Backing

I added some Art Gallery Fabrics Electric Green to tie in the neon yellow thread and add some visual interest to the backing. 

Although I don't know why I thought the backing needed visual interest because it is working. 

I rarely use solids for backing fabric, but I sure will be going forward! I think that quilting on the front is a great way to enhance the design, but having a solid on the back lets the quilting have its own moment to shine without getting lost in the business of a print. 

Check out the pattern here.