Hand Quilting With Aurifil Floss

The October challenge available to Aurifil Artisans was to use at least five colors of Aurifil thread in a project. After considering many, many possibilities – quilted zipper pouch, mini quilt, whole cloth quilt, throw sized quilt (so many choices!) – I decided to hand quilt the Sugar Pop Quilt cushion cover I pieced a few months back. I love the fabric colors in this project, and I was excited to finally finish it.

I used six Michael Miller Cotton Couture colors for my project – Confection, Raspberry, Brick, Lagoon, Spa, and Luna – and Kona Cotton White.

For my threads, I chose to use Aurifloss in matching colors – Burgundy 1103, Fuchsia 4020, Baby Pink 2423, Jade 4093, Light Jade 1148, Light Turquoise 5006. I have only hand quilted a few projects, and I’ve used Aurifloss for the majority of those projects. Three strands of Aurifil embroidery floss is the perfect weight for chunky hand quilting stitches.

I had a little fun with the different stitches, adding a row of Xs and a row of horizontal stitches, rather than go with a straight line of stitches for every row.

I am so happy with how this project turned out. Using contrasting threads, rather than matching colors, really allowed my stitches to stand out against the background color in every row. I usually only use one or two colors for quilting a project, but that has definitely changed as a result of this project!