RNK changes their thread labels and, Trapunto trouble

 

Great news! RNK immediately redesigned their thread labels after reading last week’s post. They do listen! Look, this is the redesign:

Although it will take awhile to get the new labels into stores, this is what the newest labels will look like. Yahoo! No more sticky labels gumming up the spool holder and now the label will remain intact with all the product information you will need.

Maybe there’s a lesson here? If we let manufacturers know what we want, maybe they’ll make it! RNK was unaware of the problem but was instantly responsive once they knew. We spoke, they heard, they fixed it. How cool is that?

Many thanks to Alex Anderson and Kay of RNK for responding so quickly. Bravo! I have quite a few spools of the old style design but I can live with that knowing that the newer labels will be pre-punched. I have this thread in the bobbin for my big whole cloth trapunto quilt that I’m currently annoyed by.

Now there’s an easy segue – let me show you the latest issues with my trapunto quilt, working title Trapunto From Hell (TFH).

As though the spool issues were not enough, the top thread was giving me fits:

A word of explanation here. I have Quilter’s Select Perfect Cotton Plus (60 wt 2-ply) in the bobbin and WonderFil’s Invisifil (100 wt poly) on top.The tension looks terrible even though it’s not.

I used Terial Magic on the backing fabric to stabilize it. I knew I was going to quilt the heck out of this quilt and I didn’t want the backing to buckle and/or tuck. The Terial Magic makes the fabric stiff as thick paper so the thread sits right on top and does not sink into the fabric until I rinse the Terial Magic out. I’ve tested this – can ya tell?

I tried everything to fix the bird’s nest problem to no avail. I did happen to have another spool of WonderFil Invisifil in my stash in the same color. I pulled out the new spool and most of the bird’s nests have disappeared. I always use a Bobbin Genie in my bobbin the reduce the likelihood of backlash, but it was beyond that. Fortunately the new spool behaved better but I still have a few bird’s nests.

But my huge problem was the ridiculous amounts of excess puff:

There are several possible explanations for the puff, but none of them are relevant since the puff is already there. Some of the possible reasons:
– The silk has some excess stretch. It is a dupioni but the weave is a wee bit loose.
– The loft of the trapunto does pull up the surrounding area.
– The order of quilting. I quilted the center first, then a wide band towards the outside, with an unquilted area between the two quilted areas. I knew this was a risk, but I had to make sure I liked the look and density of the outside area. The only way to do that was to quilt it. This puff far exceeds what could have been caused by the quilting order.
– I’ve done a lot of ripping so the fabric has been heavily manipulated.
– All of the above?

But the amount of puff is ridiculous:

I had to come up with a way to corral all that puff. Safety pins were not the answer! They are way to hard to remove while stitching, take up way too much space and cannot be quilted over.

Hand basting does not work. Trust me, I have tried that in previous projects. Hand basting is very squishy and malleable – the puff does not stay in place.

I came up with my own very crude method:

Crazy, huh? But here’s the deal: those pins absolutely hold the puff in place and are quick and easy to remove. And yes, I have to quilt (carefully!) over every single one of those pins or the process will not work. It evenly distributes the puff and keeps all of it within the pin boundary. It looks pretty stupid but it works. The puff is distributed throughout the quilt so the quilting is slow, tedious and fraught with peril.

Do you see why this quilt is taking me forever and has earned the name Trapunto From Hell? There is hope though:

The color is off in all of these photos, but the silk is a lovely icy blue. It’s really pretty in the completed areas where I’ve sprayed the blue wash-out marker (will immerse later). The trapunto is looking a little more delicate and dainty than I anticipated, but I can roll with that! It may even turn out to be beautiful…but the jury is still out!

I hope your week is going better! I did have a fun and fabulous time with the Valley Quilt Guild in Yuba City/Marysville. I will write about that next week – it’s bed time!

I always link up with Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday. Check it out; there are lots of great links there!