Should I do piecing first or embroidery first on embellished quilts?

Transcript

When you’re adding embellishment like embroidery, either hand embroidery or machine embroidery, to a quilt project, do you do the embroidery first or do you do the piecing first?

For me, that depends on the design.

For example, in the Sewing Friends quilt block that I have, this embroidery was done after I assembled the block, but before I assembled the whole quilt.

I want to have enough fabric that I can do the embroidery, but not so much fabric that it’s going to be awkward to manage.

Sometimes you might want to do the embroidery on the fabric even before you cut it out and then you can piece it in a bigger project.

Or you might want to do the embroidery after the piecing is done.

For more help adding embroidery to a quilt project, check out Five Tips for Adding Embroidery to your Quilt.