Quilt as desired?? HELP!
 

DD finally finished her first ( and probably last!) quilt with Mom's guidance. Now to quilt it! AS DESIRED! Darn, I wish they would give some guidance! Since they don't, I am reaching out to all of you for some. We are using black thread on the colored peices and a variegated colored thread on the black pieces. That was the easy part. any suggestions on actual quilting designs? Been looking at so many quilting possibilities, I am overwhelmed! Will be mid-arm machine quilting on a frame. Any suggestions on actual quilting designs?

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Ricky Timms has a great quilt video how to decide on the best quilting design. It's free if you are a paid member of the Quilt Show. It's called Grand Finale. It has fantastic tips and how tos on finishing any type quilt. He uses a small Bernina too, nothing fancy.

For a beginning quilter, I would recommend sewing along the sashing lines (in the ditch or maybe 1/4" saw from them), then along the block's diagonals. Of course, an all over meander would work too.

DD is not doing the quilting! While still in the "beginner phase", I have quilted 7 or 8 quilts on my frame. I guess that makes me beginner/intermediate solong as the desing isn't too intricate! ha ha

I had initially suggested "in the ditch" and/or "stipple" but she wants the stitching to show. With a meander stitch, the thread would get lost in areas. She/we are looking for a design (in colored thread) to go in the black sections and a design (in black thread) to go in the star sections.

just want to say that your quilt is great so far

I would recommend you reconsider your black thread on the colored areas. Dark thread on bright fabric has a tendency to look spidery (for lack of a better term) and every wobble, hesitation and flub will show. Only the most experienced quilters that are incredibly brave and sure of their talents would do this and many won't attempt it ever because it rarely looks great, unless it is computer generated quilting, which doesn't have hesitations, wobbles and mistakes.

Make up a test block of the colors you have used, it doesn't have to be anything fancy, just sew together the scraps in any old haphazard way and quilt on it with black thread, you will see what I am talking about immediately.

Edited to add: However the reverse is not true. Light colored thread (or a varigated multi) on dark fabric usually looks pretty good. But again, high contrast either way will show mistakes much more than a thread that blends in and you are limited that backtracking (stitching over the same line) will really show with a varigated.

I would use a bright variegated thread on it all. The easiest way, for me, would be to do curved lines in each star point from point to point [like mini arcs] and then meander or stipple the black and white areas.

You can buy the Preview Paper from Golden Threads. It is wonderful for drawing your design before you quilt.

My suggestion would be to stitch the ditch around the colored parts and echo quilt around them in the black areas. Perhaps a star in each white section or a square spiral in those white squares and some sort of vine or feather in the black middle of the "sashing.". I wouldn't stitch internally in the stars.

In a machine quilting class the instructor said she had two basic rules if she wasn't sure what to do about quilting designs. If the quilt had a lot of straight lines then the quilting would have arcs and circles. If the quilt had round lines then the quilting would be straight lines.