Meet Michelle Yeo

Michelle Yeo was born in the leafy eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, where she still liveswith her husband in the family home where they raised their 4 children.

From a young age Michellewas interested in sewing and crafts, but it wasn’t until 1984 that she made her first quilt after herthen fiancéé, now husband, told her that he hated doonas (duvets) and wanted sheets, blankets, anda patchwork quilt. He now regrets he spoke those words as he never dreamed what a monster thatcomment would create. Michelle had the privledge of taking lessons early on from Di Ford-Hall, another extremely talented Australian quilt and textile designer.

Michelle has been designing quilts and teaching for over 20 years and began running her ownbusiness, Michelle Yeo Quilt Designs, in 2006. In early 2017 she stopped working part time as anOccupational Therapist to concentrate full time on her quilt and fabric designing business, as well aspursuing her passion for teaching.

She is an enthusiastic quilt designer & teacher & teaches in herhome in Blackburn, throughout Australia and internationally, having taught in Europe – Belgium,France, Netherlands & Germany, Norway, England and the USA.

Inspired by antique quilts and the challenge of design, Michelle uses reproduction fabrics to achievea timeless appeal. But she is a contemporary artist who takes advantage of the increased speed andaccuracy that is possible using modern tools and piecing techniques such as freezer paperfoundation piecing, while also loving the more traditional techniques including hand & machinepiecing, appliqué & Broderie Perse.

Michelle’s designs look beautiful in all genres of fabrics and sheencourages her students to follow their preferred love of fabrics whether that is reproduction, moremodern or another style.

Michelle has a range of acrylic templates for ease and accuracy of cuttingand piecing which accompany a number of her designs.

Many of Michelle’s quilt patterns have been printed in Australian and international quiltmagazines and in 2014 her book, ‘Of Needle, Thimble & Thread', was published by Quiltmania.

Some of the quilts from her book were exhibited in a special exhibit, ‘Best of Australian Quilting’,at the International Quilt Festival in Houston where she also presented a lecture with two fellowAussie quilters and did a demonstration on Broderie Perse.

In 2017 she was featured inQuiltmania magazine as the designer of their annual Mystery Block of the Month Quilt whichfeatured her first fabric collection, ‘Torrington Place’.

Michelle has been designing fabrics since 2015 and her lines are influenced by fabrics from hercollection of antique quilts and textiles from the 18th and 19th century.

Her eighth fabric collection, ‘Bucklebury Chintz’, with Henry Glass & Co has just been released. Michelle’sWonderfil Designer Thread Collection will perfectly match this collection as well as fabrics from herother recently released lines.






Michelle feels privileged and is extremely excited to have theopportunity to design fabrics which are inspired by her love of antique quilts and the fabrics withinthem. Her ninth and tenth fabric lines are designed and ready for future release.

When creating a fabric collection, Michelle is inspired by more unique, and sometimes, quirkydesigns from the past. Due to her love of Broderie Perse, all her collections have a main printfeaturing a floral, either with or without birds. She ensures that birds, and if possible, flowers, aremirrored within a print to give more scope with her quilt design process,

For those who are not wanting to do appliqué or Broderie Perse, Michelle’s main printslook great as borders, cut up in blocks or left whole in setting squares and triangles within a quilt.

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Michelle always includes a serpentine stripe print within a line. These are fabulous as borders andalso bindings cut on the bias, but also create some interesting designs when fussy cut within blocks.

Fussy cutting is another of Michelle’s passions. The great effects that can be achieved with thistechnique come to life when the block is pieced. They are especially effective in round blocks orthose that have a central point, such as a Le Moyne Star (8-pointed).

Also included in making up a balanced collection are prints that can be used as a background. A lotof consideration goes into choosing the correct print, as well as the colours, as background printsvary in the way they are used and the type of blocks they are used in.

As a lover of Broderie Perseusing needleturn appliqué, Michelle prefers a background that blends with the background colourin a main print so the motifs she is appliquéing ‘float’ on the background to become a new design.

Vines, geometric prints, directional prints and smaller ditsy all-over prints are also included, as wellas an unusual quirky print if possible.

When building a collection, Michelle presents her collated antique fabrics to the Director of Design at Henry Glass with a proposal regarding colour palette, scale of prints, and suggestions whereshe is wanting changes to the original design, such as altering or substituting motifs.

She will oftencombine elements from two antique fabrics to create a whole new design. She and her design director worktogether to ensure the collection is balanced in scale, design and colour to ensure that future quiltsmade from the line aren’t flat and come to life. A balance of all-over prints, directional prints,monotone and coloured prints are all considered. She prefers to includes less colorways ofindividual prints so there is more variety of prints.

Once the artwork for a fabric line is complete, Michelle designs a range of quilts on EQ and/orAdobe Illustrator where she is able to ‘drop’ the fabrics into the design at the correct scale. She candeconstruct main prints to design new Broderie Perse blocks and ‘cut’ fabrics up for fussy cutting.This also enables her to correct any imbalances in the collection if done in a timely manner.

Thequilts designed usually include appliqué, piecing, by either hand or machine, and techniques such asfoundation piecing. Patterns are then written to accompany the designs, and some photos of thequilts feature on the sales board for the collection from which the fabric is sold to shops to give anidea of how the fabric can be used and the overall look of the collection within a quilt.

It's easy to see why quilter's around the world are inspired by Michelle's creativity and have become fans, followers, students, and collector's of Michelle's beautiful fabrics for quilters. It takes a quilter to know what makes a great quilting fabric!