Machine Embroidery And Quilting

I played with the editing feature of my machine last night and came up with this:


I played with the rotation of the design and liked this one. It would be great for a border for a larger piece like a table cloth. I added the border with my Janome 6600. I had to take out part of the side design (try undoing all those tiny leaves) as I had a major pleat when the lines met. I hate when this happens. I used the border to quilt the design. It's still really hard to get the block square because of the quilting. It puckers the fabric and distorts it.

I'm not sure if I should finish it or attempt a "quilt as you go" using different designs. The dang quilt wouldn't be square when I got done though because of the distortion between all the blocks. The block is 8x12.

My thread for my peacock purse will be in Wednesday according to UPS. Stupid shipping cost half of what I paid for the thread and I went basic ground. Maybe I should spend the money to get software to convert to thread I buy locally. It would still have to be mailed out but I'd get it the next day and it wouldn't cost me more than a couple of dollars.