Meanderings of The YEG Quilter: When quilting and embroidery collide...

 This quilt was somewhat of a happy accident. I didn't start out planning this, for sure not all the hours that went into the quilting! But lets back track here....

Bradie and I were working the Creative Stitches show in Sherwood Park last fall. We had Brother machines in the studio for awhile already, but this show was a great opportunity to get to know them better and to just play and have fun.

 Well then what's the point of just making embroidery blocks and shoving them in a drawer when they were finished? I may as well make something I can use! So I brought some fabrics from home.

 I had bought these Robyn Pandolf fabrics at an estate sale and though I loved them, I had nothing planned for them. So I picked some beautiful Fil-Tec Glide thread that matched the colours on the fabrics, found a complicated design that would keep the machine busy for an hour and a half, and the first block was done. It would become the centre block of my quilt. This was a built in design on the Brother VM5100, VM6200D and The Dream Machine.

 And it just grew from there. I found some more built in designs on the Brother machines and made a few more blocks. I then realized I had something special going on here.

 I found a block design that would frame the embroidery blocks. I had to change them up a bit to fit the different size blocks, but the end result was gorgeous.

 My husband, who is a draftsman by trade, drew up the pattern for the pieced block border. I'm ok with math, but this was a little daunting. It worked out perfect!

 2 layers of batting, one of 80/20 Hobbs Cotton Poly, and one of Hobbs Heirloom Wool.

 The quilting is a lot of ruler work, but all custom, done on my APQS Millennium. I used Invisifil thread by Wonderfil. It's a beautiful 100 weight thread that disapears in the wool batting.

 I named this Secret Garden, and made the beautiful label with the Brother Dream Machine.

 The back of Secret Garden looks like a whole cloth!

The label took 3 hours, from designing, to attaching to the quilt back.

 Ready for binding....whew, I can't believe its done! It has been a lot of fun working on this quilt, I learned a lot about our Brother machines, and also reaffirmed my love of designing.


 Don't be intimidated by jumping into something new. This started out as just "playing". It ended up being something special, unique, and pushed me beyond where I've gone. I think I will decorate my guest room around these colours....hmmm
my creative brain is in gear again....



Till next time...keep on quilting!