Aurifil is pleased to introduce two brand new Designer Thread Collections from award-winning quilter, fabric designer, author, and educator, Jinny Beyer.
COLLECTION DETAILS
Jinny Beyer Hand Piecing Collection
100% Aurifil Cotton, 28wt
Large – 820yds each, 12 Colors, Large Spools
Small – 109 yds each, 10 Colors, Small Spools
Jinny Beyer Machine Piecing Collection
100% Aurifil Cotton, 50wt
Large – 1422yds each, 12 Colors, Large Spools
For purchasing, please contact your local Aurifil Dealer or visit Jinny’s online shop.
THE INTERVIEW
How Jinny first came to love Aurifil is an interesting story. When she first started quilting, it was standard to use cream or white threads. She was working on a navy quilt and didn’t want to use those colors, but rather something that would blend. In her search for a wider range of colors, she discovered a brand of thicker thread that she grew to love for quilting and used for years. Eventually, the company was bought out and the quality went down, so Jinny went in search of something new with the same high quality she desired. Her search led her to Aurifil. The 28wt was exactly what she was looking for and as the threads are available in such a wide color range, she was always able to find the perfect hue.
Jinny exclusively hand quilts and prefers the 28wt. Her staff uses 50wt for machine piecing, but still favor the 28wt for machine quilting. The colors featured in the Hand Piecing collection are the ones that she uses most in hand quilting. She tends to work more with darker colors… blacks, navys, burgundys and browns. She’ll work with a natural color for the lighter fabrics. To select colors for the Machine Piecing Collection, Jinny looked to her staff for the most go-to colors. The goal was to offer a range of what she felt were the most standard colors, colors that would be universal for people to use for any project. She loves that this would work well both for beginners and for experienced quilters.
Some people may think that the thicker thread is much harder to thread through the needle. Hold the thread tight between your hand and the spool. Cut the thread at an angle, moisten it and flatten it out… It should go right through the eye of the needle.
Jinny’s Favorite Teaching Destination:
Recently I have been working with Sew Many Places, a travel company that brings me along as a teacher. Since the classes are travel based and we don’t have the use of sewing machine, I work with precut 6″ diamonds. I bring along handouts for the students in addition to a little bag with my favorite needle and a small spool of Aurifil thread. We focus on hand-piecing, which gives participants something to work on while on the tour bus or throughout other travel where we’d otherwise just be sitting. It’s a great lesson in what can be accomplished on the go!
THE GIVEAWAY
The best part about releasing a new collection is offering you the opportunity to use the threads in your own projects! We are excited to offer One Large Jinny Beyer Hand Piecing Collection and One Large Jinny Beyer Machine Piecing Collection to one lucky winner!
To enter-to-win, simply click here to head to the Rafflecopter entry page, or simply click on the image above. You do not have to complete all the options to be entered but the more options you choose, the more entries you have! Entries will be accepted from now through 11:59pm Eastern Time on February 25th! Winner will be randomly selected and announced on Friday, February 26th. Good luck!
LEARN MORE ABOUT JINNY
Website • Blog • Facebook • Pinterest
One of the pioneering women of quilting, Jinny Beyer was the first designer to create a line of fabric exclusively for quilters. She alone is responsible for setting the industry standard for quality and design for quilters all over the world. Jinny’s strength as a designer lies in her contemporary, sophisticated styling and in her remarkable sense of color and shading, a skill which she honed while living in India and making her first quilt. Jinny pieces and quilts by hand. An award-wining quilter, Jinny is best known for her color shading technique used to create dimensional designs that stretch the imaginations of quilters, challenging them to go one step beyond and expand their skill levels.
Jinny designs three major collections a year for RJR and several groupings of basics to support her collections. She is best known for her signature fabric, the border stripe, which she showcases in every major collection. Her most successful basics line, The Jinny Beyer Palette, features 150 tonal and multiscreen tonal designs set in a complete spectrum of color. The Palette fabrics are gradually shaded to educate quilters on how to blend colors and create effective color combinations in quilts.
In addition to the Palette, Jinny has created an amazing line of batik fabrics called Malam Batiks. In Indonesian and Malay, Malam means “night” or “evening”. However in Javanese malam means “wax”. Batiks were originally printed on the Island of Java, which is why Jinny selected “Malam” for the name of her line of batiks. The Malam Batik collections, 142 styles in total, offer a more sophisticated spin on traditional Indonesian batik cap designs. Jinny wanted to be able to create shaded effects as she does in her traditionally printed fabrics, so she challenged herself to find the types of designs that could produce a more subtle blending of color. The Batiks are printed on the finest quality base cloth with a construction of 50 x 50 yarns and 110 x 90 thread count. Shares Jinny, “In creating this line of batiks, I drew from my past experience, following the same approach I take with all my collections, to create a mix of designs, values and colors so that the prints can work and shade together in a project.
Jinny Beyer began her first quilt while living in India, using Indian fabrics in colors of deep red and dark blue. The darker hues became a hallmark of her future quilts. In 1978, Ray of Light won first place among 10,000 entries in Good Housekeeping’s Great American Quilt Contest. Jinny’s Bicentennial Quilt was awarded first place in the 1979 Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine contest. In 1984, Jinny was inducted into The Quilters Hall of Fame, a non-profit organization dedicated to honoring those who have made outstanding contributions to the world of quilting. Jinny received the Silver Star Award at the International Quilt Festival in 1995, given annually to living persons who have made a lasting and positive impact on the field of quilting and textile art over their careers. She received the Michael Kile Award of Achievement in 1996. Created in honor of the late Michael Kile, publisher of The Quilt Digest Press, the Michael Kile Award is given to people in the industry who share Michael’s commitment to excellence and have made contributions that will have a long-lasting effect on the quilting industry. Jinny’s quilt Ray of Light was chosen as one of the 100 Best American Quilts of the 20th Century in 1999, published by Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine.
Jinny Beyer lectures all over the world. For 29 years, until 2009, Quilters learned about her techniques at her annual Jinny Beyer Seminar at Hilton Head. She has published more than a dozen books and hundreds of quilt patterns.