Nancy's Embroidered BOM

 This quilt has quite a story behind it. Nancy contacted me about quilting her quilt, and said that she would be traveling to California for several months, and hoped to have the quilt finished when she returned.
First let me point out that all those items that appear to be applique are in fact embroidered/appliqued.  So, the top right corner photo has appliqued flowers and leaves, but all the of top stitching around is done with her embroidery machine.  The center design in the blue squares in the top left corner is all embroidery.  Just amazing.

I love it when I take a customer's quilt in for quilting, and leave myself some rather vague note on how to quilt it.  This time I wrote "SID around embroidery and tight background fills.  Make blocks different from one another.  Ones that match the same, but not all blocks identical.  Rulers, feathers that grow from center of the quilt.  Glide thread throughout."  Below is the thread collection that I used on this quilt.

 Now to the quilting!  Rulers in the corners to give them some definition.  Feathers in all the sashing strips that grow up from the embroidered Fleur-de-lis.

Peacock feather meander as a background fill in the white/cream blocks with the larger embroidery.

 I didn't want to distract from the fans, so I merely SID around the sides of those, and then a wave meander as a tight background fill behind them.  The inner border got a continuous feather design.

 Cross hatching on the sage green squares, diagonal stitching to follow the print in the turquise.  The one thread color I didn't have to match was the sage green.  I used Mocha instead, and think it goes quite nicely.

Continueous curves in the gold setting squares, SID around the purple sashing and the flying geese.  A type of continuous cuve that makes a grid in the 8 squares outside of each section of flying geese. The design is the same, but a thread color change for each one.

And now for confession time.  This is now known to myself as the "skinned quilt".  Meaning I had to skin it apart from the batting for 3 rows.    When I was getting ready to quilt it, I took a quick glance at the check in sheet, the quilt had been hanging up for several days waiting for me to be inspired.  Loaded it up, start to quilt.  Did 3 rows of feathers around the embroidery, and the first border.  Then I really look at the check in sheet.  Nancy wants wool batting, not cotton as I have loaded.  "Oh dear."  I called Nancy to tell her of my mistake.  She is so sweet, she is apologising to me for my mess up! Not your fault dear, this one is on me!  "Skinning" a quilt, is just like it sounds.  You take a single edged razor blade and oh so carefully cut the quilting threads between the batting and backing.  This is a great time to use your hydraulic lift and saddle stool so that you can skin in comfort, not break your back leaning over the machine.  Surprisingly, the skinning went really quickly, and it is so much better with the wool batt!  The wool gives it great loft and "poof" so you can really get some different textures with it.
Lesson learned.  Always thourougly read the check in sheet for any little details like type of batting before you start quilting.

 And a few more details.  Nancy came to pick up her quilt yesterday, and thankfully told me that she thought some areas needed more quilting.  So, back on my girl, and add on.   In the blue embroidered medallion, a tight background fill.In the corners, some triangle designs.The fans got a vine growing up each segment.Kind of a teardrop flower design in the flying geese.  I'm much happier with these changes too.  Next time I really must listen to my brain when it tells me that certain areas need more or different quilting.  It's right, I'm usually wrong.