Misty: Hey everyone, welcome back.
Today I am super excited to share with you this video on matching your threads for machine
applique projects from Annie Smith.
She’s also going to talk a little bit about her book from C&T Publishing, The Ultimate
Applique Reference Tool.
Be sure and check it out.
Annie: Hi I’m Annie Smith and I’m here today to share with you a very special tip
that corresponds with my new C&T publication, The Ultimate Applique Reference Tool.
This little tip will help you more easily choose the threads to match your fabrics for
machine applique.
One of the hardest things in doing machine applique is that after you have all of your
beautiful fabrics laid out and fused to the background, what threads are you going to
use to match your colors because you want to match the threads as closely to your fabrics
as you can.
You want the threads to just basically frame and decorate your applique, not to be so contrasting
that they really take the eye away from the composition that you’ve just made.
So I have a couple threads out here.
I really like using Aurifil 28 weight thread because it’s a little bit thicker than 50
weight thread and it has this beautiful sheen that you can see on the thread.
And it just adds a little bit to it.
So what I do, I always take the plastic sheath off and then I pull out the thread and then
I lay the thread down on top of the applique.
And so that one is a little bit dark.
And this one is just right.
And so I will choose that blue.
And then with the greens, you know, I have a couple different greens going on, mostly
yellow-greens.
And so I want to be able to match the thread to the stem.
And that’s pretty good.
And then either I want to use this one or this one.
See I really won’t know until I pull the thread because looking at this spool itself
just isn’t going to help you.
You just really get a different viewpoint when you take the thread out.
Ok and so I’ll lay this one down to see if that’s going to be a good match and I
really like this one better.
There’s such a subtlety between the greens but this one just shines a little bit more.
And so it seems to be more of a contrast.
So I’m going to remove this one.
And also because I’ve already chosen the lighter blue I’m going to remove this blue
as well.
And then I need to choose the golds for the center.
And so I can go across both golds with that one.
And then, oh look at the contrast that happens with that one.
So if I really wanted a contrast thread I could use the lighter yellow but again I’m
trying to match the thread so that it matches my fabrics exactly.
Now there’s a value difference between these two golds.
This one is lighter and this one is darker.
But look how beautiful those look together.
And so I will choose this deeper, burnished gold to use on these fabrics because I just
think it’s going to make everything pop.
And then I’ll need a red for my roses and this one just seems to be really great.
This is a little bit lighter on top of the little rose buds and I kind of like that because
there is lighter red in the fabric.
And so it won’t be contrasting too much.
But then this just kind of blends in with everything that I have going on.
So these are basically the threads that I’m going to use to stitch the entire block.