September = NaSewMo

It's NaSewMo, again! I cannot believe it's been a year already. I decided this year, I am going to work on completing my 'in-progress' projects and maybe one or two small ones. While my power was out, I worked on my daughter's quilt. Not sewing, but the layout (I had luckily finished block construction the night of Hurricane Irene), and here they are:

I wish, hindsight being what it is, that I had just done the scrappy purple for the bows. I think it would make the first option look better, instead of like a scrappy snowball. Even so, I think both arrangements are handsome. Since I couldn't really decide, I showed the pictures to my daughter and asked her to choose her favorite. Without a second of hesitation, she chose the second layout. I think that, when it comes to bowties, the angled bow looks nice with the solid bow/scrappy background and the joined/latice version looks nicer with a patterned fabric for the bow.

Now that I had my layout, now I needed my thread. I had ordered some real-thread color cards. They arrived while I had no power. I admit, I was very taken with the idea of varigated thread before I had even started the quilt. That's what prompted me ordering the color cards. I wanted to find a nice one to coordinate. Superior threads recomment using a 50 wt thread for the bobbin, so I ordered the Masterpiece color card, too (only the one with the applicable colors, though).

But since I do a lot of ordering on-line, I splurged and bought a Mettler silk-finish real thread color card, too. I'm a recent (as in last month) convert to piecing with cotton instead of polyester. I haven't been quilting long, and really, it didn't seem like it mattered. Now I know differently. It helps that my borrowed machine loves Mettler (I'd heard people say things like that about thread before and never got it. And then I did.).I love color cards. I have a folder of bookmarked sites. I'm gradually building a collection. I already have one for Kaufman's Kona Cotton and Moda's Bella solids. It seemed kind of 'duh' that I finally got around to buying a thread card, too.

Back to the quilt. I can't decide if I really want varigated thread or not. The color I want is King Tut's Egyptian Princess.As you can see, it's a tone-on-tone varigated with color change every inch, but it's subtle. I wonder, if it's so subtle with all the patterns I have in the background is it worth it? You'll only see it on the bow ties, and that might not even stand out. Which makes me ask myself: do I even want it to stand out? I don't want to be so in love with an idea that I can't see the forest for the trees. I think I've spent more time debating the thread than sewing at this point. Honestly, I don't know that I'll have a solution anytime soon.