It’s a Thread Painting Kind of Christmas!

In Christmas 2014, I decided I wanted to thread paint something for my mom. My immediate thought was that I should thread paint the Melody Miller typewriter. I knew I of course had to choose the aqua color way of the typewriter because that is my Mom’s favorite color (and mine too)!

I thread painted this piece using Aurifil threads in black, ivory, teal and green to match the design. After I started the thread painting and realized the actual letters on the keys weren’t going to happen, but I still love the way it turned out.

Now I had to decide how to make the mini quilt. This was the same time as the start of the Schnitzel and Boo mini swap so there was plenty of inspiration all over Instagram. I found this block and I thought it was the perfect pairing with the thread painting. Thanks to my friend Sarah Lidbom (@sarahlidbom) for figuring out the quilty math for this block just by sending her a screenshot.

For the mini, I chose to mix some of my Mom’s favorite colors blue, navy, aqua, gray and green with one of her favorite designers Cotton & Steel.

I wanted to have fun with the quilting and also highlight the star design. So I decided to keep it simple, micro stipple around the typewriter, and echo inside each half square triangle. For the dark “V” I wanted to straight-line quilt to accentuate the shape and directionality. On the outer gray background I chose to quilt with an overall stipple. To finish it off I added a label and hand bound it (Yes, I said hand bound. I knew she would especially love it if I hand bound the mini).

My mom loved HER thread painted mini quilt (there was crying involved)! One of the perks about this gift is that I also get to enjoy the thread painting since we share a sewing space.

Happy Quilting!