LOVE ……VALENTINE’S PROJECT IDEA FOR YOU

I enjoyed making this….it was another fun project.

• The L-O-V-E letters were embroidered first on the dark red fabric. The designs are from the ARTISTIC EMBROIDERY COLLECTION DESIGN CD: FONTASTIC by Michael Miller. This is not the first time I have stitched out these embroideries and it won’t be the last! I love the detail in them…..the digitizing is well done and varied from letter to letter. I am reliably informed that it is one of the top selling design CD’s under the Artistic Embroidery collection label (Available from your local Janome dealer in Canada & the USA).  Here is a close up pic so you can see some of the detail.

• I chose to set the 4 blocks into the print fabric sashing & borders so that the blocks were floating……..”Love is in the air” must have been going through my mind?!
• All seams were stitched using our Janome 1/4 inch foot ( this is only one of our 1/4 inch foot options) and cloth guide for extra accuracy.
• Once the top was complete, it was sandwiched and the quilting began:
• The entire background around the love blocks was quilted using the EXCLUSIVE JANOME ACUFIL QUILTING SYSTEM. The ASQ22 hoop and magnets + templates for precision placement was used. (Acufil quilting is only available on Mc11000, MC12000 & MC15000)
• I made use of the super clever idea of adding extra 5 inch borders of  cotton flannette  – long 10 inch strips folded in half lengthwise and then stitched onto the edge of the quilt sandwich with WATER SOLUBLE THREAD.  Essentially this is a very similar concept to a leader on a big quilting frame. When you have completed the quilting along the side of the quilt, simply spray the water soluble thread zig-zag stitching with your trusty spray bottle & ……voila, the extra “border” comes away and you can re-use many times over.
• One word of advice from one who has used done Acufil quilting more times than I can swing a cat at (and my cat would be appalled to hear me right now!): if you are going to add this flannette border as a means of not adding extra quilt top, batting & backing – ie not to waste fabric – it works very well. However, I would still caution you that you should not trim your quilt before you sew these strips down the edges of the quilt. You still need a bit of “wiggle room” between where the quilting stops & the “extra border” of flannelette or you might “overstitch” onto the flannelette.

The Acufil butterflies “floating” from block to background…..or what I tried to create? That’s not bobbin thread on the O: yellow dot bobbin case is a miracle tool…..it is varigated embroidery thread!

I chose to use the following quilting designs. I did play around & resize the designs where possible & necessary to fit them into the spaces I had available to quilt :

Not sure this is easy to see. It is the interlocking heart design from the Leah Day design CD which I copied & pasted 3 times to fill the ASQ22 hoop with 4 repeats. I flipped & mirrored them until I was satisfied with how they “hung” together. Although that probably was not a biggie seeing as I chose a subtle blending thread colour. It is very subtle & the L-O-V-E stands out.

• The interlocking heart design down both left & right sides of the quilt: from the Leah Day Expressions of Texture CD under the Artistic Embroidery Collection (available from your local Janome dealer in Canada & the USA)
• The butterfly design included with the Acufil Tool software
• The feathered heart design included with the Acufil Tool software.

The feathered heart from Acufil tool

This wall quilt was made exclusively on the JANOME MC 15000 version 2 machine. However, this same project with these techniques could also be made on the JANOME MC 12000 provided the machine has been upgraded with the ACUFIL QUILTING KIT FOR MC12000; and on the JANOME MC11000 Special Edition (some adjustments would be required for this model as the AQ hoops are smaller)