Aurifilosophy

Back in March, before the world went crazy, I received an invitation from Aurifil Thread to join their band of Aurifilosophers and become one of their certifed educators.

The Aurifilosophy programme started a couple of years ago and is now being expanded beyond the USA with new Aurifilosophers appointed in Canada, Australia and the UK.  I am so honoured to be one of only 3 Aurifilospohers in the UK! The other two are my good friends Nicholas Ball and Jenni Smith which is another lovely bonus. Check out the Aurifilosophy page here and find out who else is on our team.

The programme was designed for physical talks, trunk shows and workshops but of course this new world order created by the pandemic has made this impossible for now so Aurifil are allowing us to offer virtual presentations.

As regular readers will know I am a huge Aurifil fan and have been one of their designers since 2017 when my first collection ‘Sherbert Dip’ was launched.  Not only is the product both excellent and economical but I just love working with the Aurifil team who are all so supportive, hard working and genuine.

The day that I received the invitation to join the Aurifiliosophy programme was the day I won a first prize for my Dandelion Clock Quilt at the Scottish Quilt Competition – what a great day! The year went rather downhill after that… but working behind the scenes with Aurifil and starting to plan for it in the future has been a big help this year.

One of the things I’ve been doing is working on new sample projects for my presentation.  Not that it’s hard to find samples of Aurifil amongst my projects as I use it pretty much exclusively! But I wanted to make sure I had experimented with as many different products for as many different uses as possible.

When I was in Houston at International Quilt Festival last year I was particularly wowed by the Aurifilosphy exhibition which was curated by Karen Miller of Redbird Quilt Co.  Karen heads up the Aurifilosophy programme and is our ‘beloved leader’ 😉  She’s also a very talented quilter and teacher and part of the exhibition were ‘tutorial boards’ that she had put together (along with other Aurifilosophers) showing techniques using Aurifil thread.  The one that really attracted me used 12wt cotton thread to crochet a petal edging around fabric circles. I vowed to try this out as soon as I got home.

Of course I’ve never got around to it but luckily Karen’s tutorial was featured on the Auribuzz blog the recently and I knew the time had come!

It’s quite a long time since I had crocheted but luckily it all came back and I had such fun making this little flower panel with needle-turn applique leaves and stems and which I also hand quilted using Aurifil 12wt cotton. I have now turned it into a pyjama case complete with pompom edging! I seem to have increased my ‘lounge wear’ over this year of staying home and felt I needed somewhere pretty to keep it all.

If you want to try  Karen’s crochet embellished flowers for yourself then head to the bogpost here.

Another thing I’ve been doing with Aurifil thread is recreating my little birdy logo!  I used Aurifil 80wt for the applique and 12wt cotton for the hand quilting.  I turned it into this cute open wide zippy pouch and also hand quilted the back.

This little guy proved so popular on Instagram that I decided to make another version and then produce both a pattern and kits for the ‘Spring’ and the ‘Autumn’ versions.

I’ve already ordered most of the supplies and hope to have these ready to buy at the end of the month.

Lastly I’ve been using more of my current favourite embroidery thread Aurifil 12wt wool for this new embroidery design ‘Zinnia’.

I’m absolutely loving stitching this! It’s based on a painting I did a couple of years ago and I’m getting a real sense of creative freedom from working on it. It feels very ‘me’ and very exuberant and liberating.  Again I am planning a pattern and kits for this very soon! And thanks to Nicky Eglinton who came up with the name after I asked for suggestions on Instagram.

My first Aurifilosophy ‘gig’ is tomorrow night! Yes, my lovely guild, Edinburgh MQG, is allowing me to practice on them and I already have one booking for an English quilt guild in January.  With these in mind and thinking ahead I have developed my own Tailor Made Aurifilosophy box which is currently in production. This is a set of 5 threads in 5 different weights/materials which I recommend as the perfect ‘must have’ starting point for Aurifil. I’ll share more about this when the box arrives. I’m also planning to sell more specialist Aurifil threads, such as 12wt wool on my website so watch this space.

Meanwhile if you have a group or guild that might be interested in finding out more about my Aurifilosophy Virtual Presentation then please get in touch. I have created a page here on the blog where you can read more about it, or just click here. The presentation also includes a free spool of thread for each participant!