Hello all... This is a slightly different post than normal.... First and foremost a FINISHED piece from class by Diane Winder. YEAH!!!! No grass growing under this quilters feet. She had this tiger painted, bordered, and quilted w/i 2 weeks of class. With her permission, I am posting her tiger quilt photo here.

Also.... I've copied and pasted correspondence between Diane and myself about the use of monofilament thread. She asked about it... here's my response. I love it but there ARE some tricks to its use.

I do tend to use clear monopoly in the bobbin... and often also in the top... a smoke monopoly in the top works great on the black of the tiger....

Do the following when winding your bobbin
1) wind more slowly than a pedal to the medal . Monofilament ( anyones) will tend to stretch if wound too fast. It can add to possible breakage if stretched too tight. If you have a machine where you aren't controlling the winding speed with your foot, you likely have a newer machine that will wind your bobbin in accordance with your 'machine speed setting.' If thats the case.... set your machine speed to slow before you engage the bobbin winder.
2) You needn't fill it all the way. About 2/3 full is fine and will make it easier to pop the bobbin in the bobbin case.

When using either 100wt invisafil or monopoly/monofilament in the top, I use a microtex SHARP needle...usually a 70 which makes a very small hole.

Lastly.. tension with monofilament is interesting but quite doable... the top tension is set very low... almost zero... and that usually works out.

Hope that helps... practice on a scrap quilt sandwich. If you still have trouble.. holler. I do admit I 'hear' some machines just don't like monofilament threads of any manufacturer... but my Berninas seem fine with it.

Take Care!!! Patt

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Diane's response:

Here is the finished article. I will be giving it to a friend of ours today
as a belated gift for helping us move into our house a couple of years ago.
He loves tigers and I think he will treasure it.

Thank you for all your help in the class and via email. The monoploly thread
worked just fine - I'm so excited that I can now use that kind of thread. I
have always avoided it in the past because I could never get it to work.
Your instructions were great and I didn't have one breakage!

Anyway, here is the picture of the quilt,

All the best
Diane