blueangel

I would hand quilt

rivka

Yeah, I would hand quilt it if I were you. Trying to machine quilt something so complicated for the first time would be tough.

Maggiemay

If you want to FMQ your design practice, practice, practice! And relax & have fun with it! I made this quilt a few years ago & I made some quilt sandwiches, traced my design on them & practiced making the holly leaves dozens of times until I felt confident enough to try it on my quilt. Yours looks like a continuous design like mine & that is a good choice when you are just starting out ( I was too, still am really!)

Tartan

If you were trying to put the holly leaves on a quilt, you would want to FMQ them with your FMQ foot. Since it is just a tree skirt, you should be able to machine quilt it with your regular foot on and just flip your tree skirt around as you do the outline. If you have a machine with needle down on it, use that as you stop and reposition the skirt to continue sewing. It sounds like you enjoy hand quilting so that would be a nice finish also.

Gerbie

If you haven't put the skirt together yet, and if it doesn't make any difference to you whether the design shows on the reverse or not, I would trace the holly pic. on the block, and then sew around the leaf on each block then put the skirt together. That way you wouldn't have much of anything to turn. Or you could do a reversible type skirt quilting each block as you go,unless you just didn't want strips between your blocks. I would not try FMQ on it, if you mark the leaf on the block, just follow the outline of the leaf.

Bibliogirl

I, too, would hand quilt it, it seems easier that way to me.