The third of the four practice pieces I prepared is one that I'm really hoping will turn out to be a show piece, or one that I could enter into a judged show. Again, it's a whole cloth piece, but done on commercial fabric rather than a hand dye. I wanted a subtle colour for the feathers, and a white for the background. Knowing how difficult it is to choose the "right" thread for the quilting, I decided to make a "doodle" cloth to try out the various options. I managed to get down to two options for the feathers, a grey/white variegated Sulky Blendable and Superior King Tut No 916--a pale variegated in paste blue/yellow/pink--which reads as grey on the spool. I did the left side of the feathers in the King Tut and the right side in the Sulky. At first glance there isn't much difference, but where there are a couple of layers of thread, such as in the main veins, the colours of the King Tut show slightly--an effect I like.
A second consideration is the trouble I had with the Sulky shredding and breaking frequently while I was working--and I did use the recommended needle. This is a problem I've had before with Sulky Blendables. Normally I would associate this with old rotten cotton thread, but these threads are not that old, unless they had been stored for a long period at the retail outlet. This problem has happened so often that I have now decided not to use this thread again, and I'll be getting rid of what I have in some way--and I have a fair bit. For the background stippling I decided on white Kimono silk. I have not stippled in years and the "doodle"cloth gave me a chance to practice.
Anyway here is a close up of the feathers-Victorian Feathers, of course. I had a picture of the whole thing, but it was a poor picture and showed nothing, so I deleted it.
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