Roll-Your-Own Varigated Thread

Even with the great variety of color combinations of varigated threads on the market today, oftentimes I still can't find just the right color combinations for the project at hand.

I bought this pack a few years ago, before realizing they were all pretty awkward color combinations (although, from this angle they don't look so bad ...) :


At Quilt Camp in November 2006, my mom and Aunt Rosita were in need of particular varigated color combinations. Since we were out in the wilderness, away from any shops, they "rolled their own." I tried it and it works pretty well ...

Plan A : Here I picked the 3 colors I wanted from my embroidery threads : red orange and yellow. In this case, I'm filling a bobbin with the 3 threads for a custom varigated thread :

It was a little tricky using the fat-wound bobbin as all the threads did not seem to wind evenly. I'm sure with some tension-taming tools that could be worked out ...

On to Plan B : After that, I tried to just thread the 2-3 colors I wanted and sewed with them directly through the needle (#14 top-stitch). They twisted together with a pleasing randomness, trading which color was on top.

In this example, you can see the threadpainting on the logs and the fire were all done with the above multi-thread techniques.