Hopping Along With The Spring Hare

We are hopping right along with the runner in the Spring Hare collection.  The piecing is complete and I had fun choosing threads for the quilting.  I am by no means a thread snob - I love it all, and have a huge variety of weights, colours and brands on hand.  The bobbin thread is a 100 weight (i.e. very fine) Wonderfil Invisifil.  For the quilting, I chose 5 different colours:  a pink/cream variegated by Sulky, a solid yellow Konfetti by Wonderfil, a pale blue cotton Gutermann, a silver/white Aurifil variegated, and a green variegated Gutermann which I've had since Moses was a baby. That Gutermann was the first time I had seen variegated sewing thread in a store, and in my excitement, I bought all of it, in all the colourways - the entire thread display!  It was my first experience hoarding thread...(sadly not my last...:))  I have two spools of the green left, and one of a Christmas red/white/green.  It was a well-loved investment!

I picked up this pink Sulky at The Quilt Gallery in O'Leary last summer and have been itching to use it.  It has the perfect blend of shades from dark pink to cream to work with the blades in the fan blocks.

It was a tad heavier than the rest - a 30 weight - but I liked the effect.  It was like embroidering small scrolls.

Because of all the variation in thread thickness between my top and bobbin threads, it was necessary to adjust the top tension with each thread so that my stitches were perfect.  I am always amazed at how reluctant students are to do this!  For the 30 weight pink thread, I had to call on the bobbin case's secret weapon - I call it a stitch finger, I have no clue what it's really named.  Not all machines have one, but if they do, it's a wonderful help to proper tensioning.  You can see I've simply run my bobbin thread through the tiny hole at the top of the finger before inserting the bobbin back in the case.  It tightens up the bottom thread just a tiny bit - way easier than moving the screw.  

The quilting is almost finished up, so I will show you the rest soon.