02 November 2010

Embroidery and Quilting Opinions Needed

EmbroideryFloss

I've been working on some stitchery blocks, 9 to be exact. The smallest is about 6x6" and the largest is a whopping 10x10". This is one of my committed UFOs, you can find the challenge over there on my sidebar. Over the weekend I started sewing them into a flimsy. This is not really a question about embroidery or stitchery, but a question about putting embroidery in quilts and then quilting it.

Have you done this? How did you quilt it? Did you quilt up to the embroidery and then leave the embroidery alone? Did you disregard the embroidery and quilt right over it?

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I am tempted to disregard the embroidery because of the disparate sizes of the blocks. I have done this before but because the blocks were a uniform size and was being hand quilting, I just quilted a big X in the block; it really is not that noticeable as you can see in the photo above. This new piece, however, is begging for a leafy vine.

Your opinion matters to me, please leave me comment! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

11 comments:

  1. I vote for disregarding... Though I have seen it done both ways successfully.

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  2. I am really interested in everyone's response to this because I will have the same dilemma too.

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  3. I have just plowed right over the embroidery with quilting in the past. But if I were working on something I hoped to become an heirloom, I would probably give it a little more thought and consideration.
    *yoo hoo* . . . . that's me over here, sitting on both sides of the fence *S*

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  4. I have no experience with this at all, but I think I would customize the quilting for each block - and either outline the stitching, maybe enhance the design inside as well with quilting stitches (veins on leaves, etc.).

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  5. I've had some quilts with embroidery machine quilted, and the quilter refused to go over the embroidery. I understood her reluctance but I would have liked to have some around the motifs to make them "pop."

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  6. I vote for going right over the embroidery if it's not too detailed. I would be nervous having a large area like the 10 x 10 without some quilting to hold it together.

    FYI as a member of the itchy back club, thanks! I will be getting one of those. Winter is the worst time.

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  7. I've seen it both ways too Paula but my personal preference is for quilting up to the embroidery but not over it. blessings, marlene

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  8. I have seen it both ways too, but I find when the embroidery covers a large area and is not quilted over it tends to get puffy there. Unless it is very detailed I prefer when it is quilted over.

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  9. I have do not have any experience with this, so not know if my opinion really counts, but I would have to say, I think I like the look of going over it.

    I am thinking about starting a sewing challenge blog. Bi-weekly themed challenges, then random generator picks a name, and they win a little something something. If this sounds interesting to you, go check it out here at Sewing Challenges and tell me what you think.

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  10. I made a baby quilt with embroidered blocks and quilted right over the embroidery. The background of my embroidery blocks was white so I used a white thread and it didn't detract from the embroidery at all. My rationale was that I wanted the quilt to stand up to repeated washings and lots of use -- and having seen it over a year later, I know that that was the right decision.

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  11. This is a very good question which I will be facing with a stitchery project next year. I have seen it done both ways and think I prefer not quilting over the stitchery.

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