Blue Birds

This quilt was pieced by Julie Blazek.  The pattern is from Crabapple Hill.  She does incredible embroidery and I loved this quilt as soon as I saw it.  It's so pretty and all that white space....a perfect spot for feathers!

Here's a couple pictures of it while it was still on my table.  I knew I wanted to do these curly feathers.  These were done freehand and I filled in the outer area with echo quilting up to the scallop edge (drawn in). 

 Notice that I quilted right over the embroidery.  It is not much stitching and it keeps the border nice and flat.

A few more pictures of the embroidery and blocks follow.  I did not go thru the embroidery in the blocks because I wanted them to come forward.  The same idea for the 9-patch blocks - simple arcs were stitched in the background fabric, allowing the color fabrics to come forward. 

Corners and sides

Hand Embroidery

Here is a quilt top from Lynn N.  She enjoys hand embroidery and it looks great paired with pieced blocks made from Japanese fabrics.  I like the mix of colors - so soothing. 

Click on Photo to see close up.

 I quilted a simple sashiko pattern from edge to edge, going through the embroidery.  This keeps everything evenly quilted and flat.  I matched the thread color to the background fabric, so it doesn't take away from the embroidery.