Fall/winter projects-Machine Embroidery

Believe it or not but this year is just about to come to an end. One of the things that has surprised me about this year is how fast time flew. Working out some of the Christmas presents I decided to use up some of my flannel fat quarters that had been purchased well over a year ago. As these were  the Benartex special batik prints, I had thought about making a flannel winter jacket for myself using my Victorian Patchwork designs. Looking at them this year, I decided the colors were a bit too flashy for even myself to wear for the holidays so I created a lap quilt.

As you can see the colors are quite bright, lovely but bright. As they were so vivid I decided to use metallic thread for all the embroidery. Somewhile back I had discovered metallic thread by Madeira in 5000m spools. This is not a shiny metallic rather it is an extreme dull old gold. I used it for not only the piecing or applique of the patchworks but also the various embroidery motifs. I have to admit the thread never shredded or broke. Looking underneath the spool, I found the stamped “Made in Japan” which makes me believe that it is Fujix thread. I had talked about Fujix thread once before. The largest thread making company in Japan is Fujix and it makes the best thread in my opinion. Those of you who ever purchased the Brother machines and received the thread samplers…they were made by Fujix.

I did not use EQ this time to create my quilt blueprint as the blocks were two sizes. I admit I’m not that smart yet in EQ…I could figure it out but with time being short, I did not attempt. The blueprint was created on paper however and I decided to use two of the rectangle crazy patch blocks along with two square crazy patch blocks. I then added plain blocks to even up the empty space and create  15″  or 11″ blocks. At first I thought I had enough fabric (these were fat quarters) but as I calculated mentally I realized it would be a pretty close call, which it almost was! For the outside border I had purchased a pale yellow flannel but after creating the center, it just didn’t look right and upon discussing with friends, I went for a navy blue flannel.

Now mind you, I’ve made several flannel quilts so I know how heavy they can be. In the back of my mind I knew I was going to use plain flannel instead of batting but when the time came to set up, I chose thin batting. Don’t ask me why, LOL. The result was that although after being quilted, the quilt has a good weight to it, yet it was heavy to hold onto when machine quilting. I spend perhaps one of the longest time frames (one week) in just quilting…almost double the time that it took me to create the top. I have jotted down for future never to use batting in a flannel quilt, especially if I’m going to machine quilt it myself.

The quilt is finished and I’m rather pleased with it. Do wish however that I had more of the fabric to create a queen size quilt…maybe later.