The center is a piece of Sashiko embroidery. Sashiko is a traditional Japanese embroidery that features repetitive patterns. Originally this was found on the coats fishermen wore out to sea.
I surrounded the embroidery by a wide border of a geometric patterned fabric that had an Asian feel and finally I added a binding that reminded me of cherry blossoms. The binding is Liberty of London fabric. The Liberty brand fabric has the most amazing prints and is a dream to work with but has a price tag that is about 4x more per yard than other fabrics (this is why the binding is in Liberty and not the borders).
I did kind of a free form plaid to quilt the piece together. In the photo you can see my pencil marks for the quilt lines but I think I was able to get them off of the fabric before I gave the piece away (it was a gift for Michael's mom - oh and if the pencil marks are still there just run it through the wash or consider them something intentional ;-)
