Let's step off the beaten path by playing with tulle and with twin needles on a quilting machine first.

Kestrel Michaud explains how and why to apply tulle to your art quilts.

Next, educator Nina McVeigh breaks out twin needles and shows you how to get creative with them.

Today's guests will shine a creative light on some underutilized tulles.

Quilting Arts TV is brought to you by.

The Bernina 990.

If it can be imagined, it can be created.

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[Upbeat music] You can use tulle in your work to change the value of the fabrics and Kestrel you use that in a lot of your work.

- Yes.

You're here to tell us a little bit about why and how.

Purely strategically, as opposed to holding my raw edges in place.

- Okay.

- So.

Yeah, because some people put tulle over the whole piece if they don't want the edges to fray as they stitch those layers.

Right.

I typically use tulle much more strategically to create a visual effect.

- Okay.

So a few examples in this one.

This quilt is called Echoes of Time and Magic.

And I use tulle in two different ways in this quilt.

The first is in the glass dome to create the effect of the glass.

So you can see the netting effect in the glass dome.

Right.

It's visually different from the sky around it and that's what creates that glass effect.

So here you know there to the from the sky to the dome looks different.

- Right.

Exactly.

Even though you're seeing the sky through the dome.

Exactly.

- Okay.

- Yes.

And that's what makes viewers feel like there's something there.

And that what's supposed to be there is the glass.

- Okay.

I also use tulle in this picture to create a sense of atmospheric perspective.

Okay.

- So whenever you're looking at like mountains in particular, you really get this effect.

They're way off in the distance and they look hazy blue.

Right.

- That is atmospheric perspectiv And I can use tulle as specifically a light blue tulle or light blue netting over part of my picture to create or simulate that effect.

So in this quilt, the mountains that are kind of in the middle of the picture are under that light blue netting, whereas the cliff face in the front right is not.

They definitely look further away.

That's right.

- Right.

It creates that sense of depth.

Okay, great.

So I've also used tulle to creat a shadow.

I missed one.

There we go.

So in this picture this is called the last call.

And the shadow behind the raven is made from four layers of tulle going over the fabrics.

Did you know you were going to need four?

Did you test them out or did you?

- I tested them out.

Because typically I'm using one layer.

But I kept adding more and more layers until I was finally happy with the four.

He's very dramatic lighting in this picture, - Yes.

so I wanted that from having a really deep, dark shadow.

So what you're seeing here is, is the wood grain showing through the shadow - Exactly.

- just a little bit.

Exactly.

Yes.

And with him I used the same stitch pattern inside the shadow as outside.

I switched the thread color though, so it really helps connect the shadow to the wall that it's being cast on, because the stitch pattern doesn't change even though the color and the value does.

- Right.

So many things to figure out - Yes.

those technical issues to solve.

- That's right.

Is what makes it art Quilting so fun.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

And then the last example I have here is another example of glass.

So this is my quilt Bremen Town Musicians.

And I use tulle to simulate the glass in the closed portion of the window.

So where the donkey and the cat are, is open.

Correct.

- He's sticking his hea through.

- Exactly.

But the dog is behind the.

Behind glass.

Yes.

Awesome.

That's great.

So how?

I want to demonstrate how to apply or how I apply tulle to my designs.

- Okay.

We have some colors here too.

So let's talk about that First.

- And talk about the difference between tulle and netting because I've heard them call different things.

- Yes.

So I actually have both here.

The netting is a is a looser weave.

The tulle is a tighter weave.

It's typically very delicate.

- Okay.

I kind of use them interchangeably.

They don't make a whole lot of netting versus tulle.

Does it make a huge impact on what I'm doing.

So I care more about the color.

- Yeah.

But if you.

If you go to a store and buy it, it might be labeled as tulle or netting.

They're functionally going to be the same for this purpose.

- Okay.

- Yes.

I brought four colors that I use most often with the.

The one I use the most often is this light blue.

And that's what I use to create the atmospheric perspective.

Like I said, typically I only need the one layer, but I have a whole bolt of it because it's the one I use the most often.

I also brought.

It's hard to tell what's on top.

Yeah.

- It does stick together.

I also have this white one.

White is what I use for glass because it's noticeably different from the blue.

So it's I can have them both in the same picture.

And this one isn't interfering with the atmospheric perspective effect and vice versa.

So like the window with the dog.

- Was white.

- Was this.

Yes, exactly.

- Okay.

And then last but not least, I have two dark versions here.

I have a navy blue and a black.

Black really is such a dense color.

It just it just kills the effect of the design.

In my opinion.

It's flat and dull.

- Flat and dull.

Yes.

So the raven, the shadow on the raven.

It was two layers of navy and two layers of black.

And that kept some of the color in the shadow.

So basically you've got that.

Right on top of the rest of the normal quilt sandwich.

Yes.

Yes.

- Okay.

So let's add some to a project.

All right.

So I've just got a sample quilt sandwich here.

I've got we're going to work with one piece of tulle because that's usually what I'm using.

And even here before it's quilted down, you can already see a difference between the fabric that's under the netting and what's not.

- Yes.

And that's when applied to a picture that has all of the design built into it already.

That's what's going to create the effect.

So I use a marking pen.

This is just like a chalk roller.

And we're just going to do a fun heart today.

Something nice and simple.

You know that's all I need.

Really.

- Okay.

And then do you pin.

For something that's as small as this?

I don't really need to.

- I'll let you do this.

So you do it the right - You were helping.

It's small enough.

I can just hold it in place while I'm quilting.

Okay, but for something bigger.

So my larger pictures, I will pin well away from where I'm going to be quilting, just to kind of hold it evenly over the whole center surface.

Okay.

And then come over to my machine and I will say I typically quilt with a lightweight silk thread.

That's what I'm using today.

You can use whatever you want.

Just keep in mind the heavier weight thread, the more it's going to stand out and could impact the visual impression you're making.

That's something that you'll need to try with your own projects.

Okay.

- We're just going to start at the point.

Pull my bobbin thread up to the top.

Always good to have good thread hygiene.

Yes.

And.

I'm quilting just around that edge of that chalk mark.

And smoothed out my line.

That holds the tulle in place.

Holds the tulle in place.

Now I'm going to do a little bit of filler quilting.

Nothing fancy, just extra stitching to further hold that tulle before we remove the excess.

It's a nice little wave on the inside of our heart.

You can probably tell.

I like to fill pretty quickly.

You're just speedy.

- Speed demon when it comes.

To the stitching.

Yeah.

Alright.

That's going to be good enough.

For this.

Come down here now.

I'm going to pull my bobbin thread up to the top.

And you can do that by just moving your quilt sandwich out of the way, holding the loop, coming back.

And then if you send your needle through and hold the loop, there comes the bobbin thread again.

- Yes.

That's something that clever people who work on long arms use a lot.

- Do a lot.

Yes.

And then I've got my craft blade here.

We're going to be using this more in just a moment.

You're living dangerously.

- Living dangerous.

I'm just going to cut both of those.

Okay.

We have freed our quilt sandwich.

Okay.

And now, normally, I would tie these off and tuck them and, - Yeah.

you know, have good hygiene, like I said before, but for this, I'm just going to cut them so they're out of my way.

Now, I very carefully will use my craft blade to cut the tulle around my stitching.

So let me just open up a gap here.

So that you can access it better.

- That's right.

Yeah.

- Yep.

And then I'm just very carefully going to go along the edge.

I'm not even really pushing.

The netting is so fine.

You're just nipping each little - And just Kind of thread.

- Yep.

You like I'm not even applying any pressure.

Really.

- Yeah.

- There's no need.

If you've got a sharp blade, you can go right along the edge and it's enough to just break the connection with that tulle and it leaves.

Look at that nice crisp edge - Yeah.

- that we've got there.

And I just go the whole way around.

Okay, great.

Well, let's take a look at some of your finished pieces.

Yeah.

So that' the process.

- Yeah.

Finish that up.

Move this to the side and let's talk about this guy first.

This is Gordon.

And can you guess where the tulle is in this quilt It looks like it's on his glasses.

You're exactly right.

- Yeah.

That's right.

So I once again used I think I actually use two layers of white because again you audition how many layers you need.

And for him, I wanted it to be apparent that he wasn't wearing empty glasses.

So.

- Right.

So I'm looking at, like, this kind of the darkest value of salmon in there.

Exactly.

- And so it's here and it's here.

And look at how much darker that is.

- Exactly.

Yes.

And I also the stitch pattern inside the glasses.

Oh that helps too.

That parallel lines that are on a diagonal.

Almost like the light is hitting the lenses.

Exactly.

Yep.

it helps that changing the stitch pattern between what's on the rest of his skin tone just helps sell that illusion of glass.

Yeah.

Oh he's fabulous.

And then we've got this guy.

There's a lot of tulle on him.

He also has a little bit of organza, which I have never used outside of this project.

It's too much for me.

Typically the organza is is down here.

Right.

- There's two layers right along the planet, and then there's one layer of organza here.

And the organza is even finer, denser weave than tulle is.

It looks more it reads more solid.

It reads more solid.

Yes, exactly.

Which we're creating the illusion of atmosphere around this little planet.

So it worked for this.

- Yeah.

And now, is this a tulle that has sparkle in it?

- Yes.

Yes, it was sparkle tulle.

Yes.

And you can see how there are there's different amounts of tulle here.

Like this stripe Right.

- Obviously stands out that is under this bigger sweep.

So this big sweep of tulle is helping hold these little guys in place.

Well, your attention to detail is really exceptional that you that you really notice those things that you want to.

Yeah.

- Yes.

Yeah.

It all matters to me in selling the illusion of what I'm trying to create with my work.

- Right.

Okay, so talk about the lemons in the back.

Oh, yes.

Behind us we have some sushi and the the lemon garnish.

It was sliced.

This was based on a photograph of actual sushi.

And the garnish was sliced so thin the lemon itself was transparent.

So I have a couple I think two layers.

It might just be one layer.

I forget it's been a while since I made that quilt, but Yellow tulle creates that super thin membrane of lemon.

Yeah, and such a spectacular piece.

Thank you.

- Well, this is really interesting.

I can think of lots of applications for the tulle.

I appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- Yes.

We'll be back in just a minute.

Nina McVeigh is here.

She is an a quilter and an educator.

And today she's going to teach us about double and triple needles and how to make all these beautiful embellishments.

They're so fun.

Twin needles to me are like a toy.

There's a lot of specialty needles, but I love the twin needles.

Twin needles come in different sizes, so we kind of want to look at that.

And what is the effect that you want when you stitch with twin needles.

So we have I have three needles here.

They come in a lot of other sizes, but you always want to look at the two numbers on a package.

Like for instance this first one is a two slash 80.

What that means that number two means these needles are two millimeters apart - Okay.

- and it's a size 80 needle.

So I have three millimeters apart four millimeters apart.

And depending on your machine and and the width of your machine, there are other needles that you can use.

Twin needles come from 1.6mm apart to eight.

And that you need to.

Be thinking about the stitch plate and the hole - Correct.

- in the stitch plate.

Right.

- Because if it's really wide and you go trying to go down a narrow, you break a needle.

Not good.

- Okay.

And so I have put a twin needle stitch plate on my machine.

And you can see the hole is a little bit bigger than the than the normal stitch plate.

Okay.

One of the other things that we kind of want to look at since we mentioned the different sizes of needles.

So we said two width that's a two width.

- Okay.

Three width that's a three width four width that's a four width.

So you see that.

- Do they come wider than that?

Yes.

As I said they come up to eight millimeters apart.

But you wouldn't do that on this machine because it's limited to the four millimeters.

Okay.

- So it depends on your machine.

And of course the wider those needles are apart, you have to play with them a little bit more to get what you want.

But what I want you to see is that we have these straight lines of stitching, and you can see how far apart those needles are, and that's pretty in itself.

But then when we start playing with free motion, when we go straight forward, it's like a calligraphy pen where it's wider, so you get this wideness, but with a calligraphy pen, when you go across, it's a straight line.

- Right.

It's the same thing with the needles.

So I can play here.

It's like ribbon work.

It goes in and out of narrow and wide, and then if I go sideways, it's just a straight line.

- Nice.

So that's the really fun, fun part of playing with twin needles when I come over to the machine, of course, I've already said that we switched out our stitch plate, but I also want to make sure that I have a free motion foot that's wide enough to accommodate those needles.

So I have a quilting foot on here.

And then threading.

Threading is important.

With twin needles.

I always thread one thread at a time and I'm stitching.

I'm threading.

It doesn't matter right or left, but what I want to do is make sure that whatever thread I have on the right, I'm going through the right needle.

- Okay.

And whatever thread I have on the left, I go through the left needle.

The thing that I think is important to pay attention to is that is your tension disc, - Okay.

- and there are two sides to a tension disc.

So when you thread with double needles or twin needles, you want to make sure that you separate those two threads at the tension disc.

And one thread goes on the right side and one on the left side.

- Okay.

So now what about triple needles?

Oh my gosh.

- How do you spread for that?

We haven't even talked about triple needles yet.

That's another toy.

Yes, we do have triple needles of course.

It'd be three needles.

And when I thread for that, I just choose what side of the tension disc that thread wants to go on.

So you've got two on one side and one on the other.

- Okay.

And that works okay.

- All right.

So we're all threaded.

We're all set to go.

And I should mention that when you do have twin needles in, you can't use a regular built in needle threader.

So you want to make sure that you have a hand threader to thread those needles.

- Or a good eye.

- Or a good eye.

That's right.

So let me do a little stitching.

- Okay.

And I'm just going to start with a straight line.

So you can see those.

Beautiful.

It's so cool.

- Aren't those threads So pretty.

Yeah yeah.

But if I want to start doing you can see when I come sideways.

It's just.

Like it's a line of - It's one line.

So as we go in different directions.

Beautiful.

That is so fun.

And it.

Is a lot easier.

Than I thought it might be.

I was a little bit scared to even try it.

Well, the only thing you have to make sure is that again, that throat plate is wide enough for the needle and the foot is wide enough for the needle.

The threading is easy.

So this is really.

And I love it with the Variegated thread too.

This is play.

Total play.

It's so much more dramatic.

It makes a bolder line than just one line.

- It does.

So it's stronger element.

- It does.

So it just depends on what you're doing.

But I think that we forget that we can actually quilt with double needles or twin needles, whatever you want to call them.

But I should also show you that on the back side you sort of get a zigzag stitch.

- Oh yeah.

So that's been, you know, do you want that on the back of your quilt?

How do you deal with that?

A lot of times my backings will be busy and you don't really see that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

- So Okay.

But the other part of that is that we can do it with ruler work, - Ah okay.

because I can use a ruler foot and I can do the same type of stitching with ruler, with rulers.

And I think that really adds to the stitching.

- Yes.

So it's really fun to see what a circle will do with twin needles.

So I'm going to stitch a little bit here.

And I've got a circle ruler.

So I'm going to put this on the lines that I've drawn and lower my needle into the center of this.

So I've going to do a circle and we'll see how that changes the shape of that circle.

Not the shape but the way the thread lays.

I'm all set to go.

So I'm just going to go around.

And I see the wideness and the narrowness of the stitching.

And you're going a little bit Slower maybe, than you would normally stitch.

Just a.

- Yes, because you just want to be a little careful about how this is all working.

- Yeah.

You know, you want to make sure it's all working and then you don't want to rush it.

You've got two needles doing the work here instead of One.

- Right.

So you can create some really, really nice motifs.

And at this point I'm going to get in here and cut that thread.

So you don't stitch over it.

Yeah, it's out of my way.

These rulers really offer you so many different design possibilities.

They do.

But I think it's such an interesting motif when I look at this and this is a motif I do a lot.

And then when I look at it, compared to the double needle, the double needle is so pretty.

Yeah.

You could just keep doing it.

If you if you measured out the increments, you could make it a big swirl around.

Yes you could, yes you could.

So I've got that all stitched.

Oh so great.

So isn't that pretty.

- Beautiful.

Yeah.

And you know that's a circle motif.

You certainly could do a motif around the top of a ruler.

Again, I think you need to look at this and decide, let me do this first one and show you that if I have this ruler.

And let's go ahead and do it.

And you're using these lines to line up?

I am I am.

- Yeah.

- With ruler work you I know I want to go from one corner to the other corner, and this square that I've drawn is the size of this ruler.

But I think that if you look at this, you can see when I was coming this way, it was almost a straight line.

- Right.

Then it opened up and back to a straight line.

Really dimensional.

- Correct.

Now, if I don't turn my fabric and I leave this like this, it's going to look different.

It's going to be straight up here at the top.

Correct.

- Okay.

Now you may want those differences between, you know, the motifs or you might decide that oh gee I'd like to turn my work.

It's important to know that when you turn your work with double needle, normally you would have your foot down.

Oh.

- Or your needle down here.

I want to put my needle up.

- Right.

Otherwise you're snapping those Needles.

- and being very careful.

And this is when I kind of look and I want to see okay, I'm right there.

And then I'll do it.

I wouldn't have thought of that.

I would have just charged ahead and that would have been bad.

Well, it's like a marching band, you know, you have to you can't really pivot with, with a needle.

So but I think it's interesting, depending on how you do your work, like I said, you're going to have different motifs where this is straight up here on the side or straight at the top.

- Yes.

And you can play with that.

As we do this.

As I said, I really think twin needles, triple needles are toys for your machine.

And we get to play with those and really create.

So fun.

And so you can see on here I did that motif of course, in the center.

But then just a lot of straight line ruler work, you know, a lot of times you just do straight lines, channel quilting in borders and it's so pretty with double needles.

It also gets the job done faster because you're using two needles instead of one.

- Right.

Right.

And beautiful and elegant, especially on this black fabric really shows off.

- It pops doesn't it?

It shows.

- It does.

So.

So what?

Are there other things that you have done with the double needles that.

Well.

Of course they're great for garment sewing.

- Oh right.

And top stitching and that kind of thing.

But as we talk about twin needles here, free motion, you know, this is really what I've done with them.

And let me just mention there are other specialty needles.

There's something called a wing needle.

And it kind of pushes the fibers of your fabric apart, not something you might want to use in quilting.

But as I say that, I think, oh my goodness, for those art quilters, they might want a texture fabric with something like that in a free motion sense.

- Yeah.

Oh, there's a whole world out there I need to learn about.

There is.

Thanks so much.

We'll be back in just a minute.

From applied Design theory to innovative technique.

Learn what fellow artists are up to within the art quilting community.

Join us for finishing touches.

Hi, Marcia.

Hi, Susan.

You brought some tiny but mighty art quilts with you.

I did.

Both of these.

Address nature.

And I thought it was so interesting how it's the same theme, but with such dramatically different results, you know?

And this first one actually uses sort of tilted quarter square triangles all throughout.

And I believe that those are all hand-sewn.

And then the artists used, you know, thinned embroidery thread throughout.

Or maybe a little pearl cotton.

Or maybe pearl cotton to create movement here and the wind across here.

And you know what struck?

One of the things that struck me the most about this is that even with simply using color and these blocks, we know that there's a river or lake here.

- And this is the Sky.

- And the sky, and we can imagine.

-Yeah.

And sometimes it's when you pull something down to its simplest elements that it becomes the most beautiful, you know.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

And then this one also addressed nature simply in a completely different way.

But I thought it was so interesting because of the layered feel of all these colors and the lettering here.

It looks like it's either paper.

Or fabric that maybe has some gel medium.

Gel medium.

Right.

Yeah, but it has like kind of a laminated feel to it.

And this frames it so nicely.

It's gorgeous.

It's just this big squiggle.

It just says nature because it's so wild and free.

Yeah.

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The Bernina 990.

If it can be imagined, it can be created.

Gentle fuse fusible web made for quilters from Maywood Studio.

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