Embroidered Birth Announcement

In the olden days-

 it would take a grandmother

 several weeks to hand embroider

 birthday commemoratives.

Now on my Bernina... 

once all the decisions and entries are made... 

only a few hours are needed 

and the results are lovely!

I purchased patterns on line 

and after downloading and entering the details... 

I hooped fabric over stabilizer and stitched away!

I made a set for us & a set for the twins parents :D

I hope they will like them!

Illusion Block Table Runner

Wooo Hooo- 

Just finished another great

sew-along from Sweet Pea Designs. 

I created this Illusion Block Table Runner 

with assorted fabric “strips” 

in 7” block size. 

After I created the 10 blocks ITH 

on my Bernina 880 machine… 

it was wild to see the designs morph 

as the blocks twisted and turned 

until I finally decided on this layout. 

Alas… then came the tricky binding. 

(There is a lot to be said for the ease 

of a straight edge- 

oh well- I think it was worth the extra time!) #sweetpeadesigns #sweetpeamachineembroiderydesigns #illusionblockstablerunner #bernina880plus

After I completed a few blocks, 

I started to play around with the 

different patterns it morphed

 in to with manipulation.

Then I came up with the idea

 of swapping out a few scraps

 to change the whole thing!!!

On 2 blocks... I nixed the red and

I added 2 orange, 2 yellows,

 and 2 black squares.

The final 2 blocks looked like this.

When joined with the other two... 

the magic would occur.

The next day I joined the blocks 

& quilted it simply.

Next day I dealt with the bias binding.

It was tedious- but I love the results.

After stitching binding 

on the runner front by machine,

I hand stitched it to the back... 

allowing a tighter bind around corners of runner.

Whilst I wish seams had matched up a bit better,

I am real happy with the end result.

UPDATE: May 31, 2022

FIRST PLACE!!!

and here is where my quilt was posted 

in an expanded photo layout for extra random winners...

"How do we pick the winners of our SweetPea monthly sew along???

We have 12 winners in total ,

3x1st place ,

3x 2nd place ,

3x3rd place

and 3x randomly picked winners.

It is very difficult to pick the winners as we only have the photo to judge, we can’t pick up the project in our hands and examine it closely.

We try to pick the winners on a combination of execution of the sewing , the creativeness of the project , and overall appearance of the project.

We have a program that automatically scrolls through all the entries to pick the 3 x random winners.

The entrants must follow the sewalong competition rules that we post at the start of every month’s sewalong.

We have a very difficult time in choosing the winners but we try to be fair and thorough in our decisions

If you have a question regarding eligibility of your project in

a sew along please email us at customer.service@swpea.com Thanks

Good luck everyone"