I pinned Kennedy's quilt last night and now I'm lost of how to best quilt this quilt. It is 79" square which is larger than I ever did.

My preferred method is SID and I am very comfortable with it, but I think this quilt needs a little more. The blocks are 9" and the sashing is around 2" (I think). I have assorted variagated threads and really need to get this quilt done and sent off.

My FMQing is non-existent (read: it stinks), so I'm hoping for some great ideas by the group.

Do you quilt by hand or machine. If machine, I would do loops all over.

I would do outline quilting around the hands - maybe three rows, then quilt a small hand in each of the blue blocks.
This quilt is so fun! Love the idea.

I quilt by machine.

Biting nails at thought of even echo quilting. Scared - scared - scared. Great ideas though.

I was afraid to do echo quilting on the machine but one day I did it by using my foot as a guide for the next row and it came out great.

You could blanket stitch around the sides of the sashing, and use a elongated decorative stitch diagonally in the corners of the blocks (one or two rows)

After you've SID, just keep using your walking foot & go slowly around each shape, stopping every three or four stitches with your needle in the down position & turn your work towards the curve you need. It's slower than if you did it free motion, but it works!

Do you have any decorative stitches on your machine? I've got a nice serpentine that looks great in place of stitch in the ditch. It looks great w/vareigated thread and it's more forgiving of mistakes too! I'm just getting brave enough to do FMQ on "real" quilts. Until I'm more confident, I match the background fabric and mistakes don't show so much.

What a beautiful quilt. I, too, am FMQ challenged so do mostly SID. I have drawn some shapes-stars, hearts, leaves, etc-and just stitch on them with the feed-dogs up. If I go real slow it looks just fine. I like the idea of outlining the hands about a 1/4-1/2 inch away.
I'm not much help but I do like your quilt. Good luck and please show us the finished product.

You could always use a chalk pencil like (washes away) and draw the design you want whether it be stippling, cross hatching or even an echo design. Then just stitch on the drawn design. Be sure to take your time, use needle down - same principle/technique one would use if they were stitch'n around a fused applique piece only w/a straight stitch instead of zigzag...

I like the idea of echoing around the hands but I would be too chicken to try hearts in the blue squares.

Oh, my dear Mad, that is beautiful!!

Don't be afraid of echo stitching. Use your marking pencils and draw a 1/4 then sew on the lines. You can do it, I have confidence in you!

Hugs,
Sharon

Great looking quilt Mad!

Echoe quilting around the hands would give it a little motion to the quilt and is really easy to do. just use your narrow foot that is a straight stitch and use the side of the foot as the guide matched to the hand, and so on. I never mark echoe quilting. It is such a cute quilt, by the way. Perfect for the little one. :thumbup:

i would echo the heart out to the edge of the block on each block

What an adorable quilt! If it was mine, I'd outline each hand, and quilt the word' hope' in cursive through the sashings, then a smalll heart in the connecting blocks.. carry the theme of hope through the whole quilt, it breaks up the area that you're quilting into manageble sizes, the quilt is user friendly because it isn't too heavily quilted. Good luck!

Radiating lines like sun rays starting in the middle of each block bottom going towards the top so they spread out like the fingers and NOT on hands themselves.. leave them to stand out alone. Its such a colorful quilt maybe rainbow thread. Goes with the hands, children theme.

I think a larger stipple (FMQ) would look great on it, I think a larger stipple makes the quilt softer and more cuddly. This is how I quilt all my quilts, I use dark nylon thread for real dark colors and clear nylon thread for all others, and regular or machine quilting thread in the bobbin. I love it and your quilt looks Great !!!

Well, there is an abundance of ideas. I knew it. YOU ARE THE GREATEST! Will evaluate and pick later. Might need a few practice runs.

BTW, yes, my machine has lots of decorative stitches and I like the way it executes them.

Great quilt! It is gorgeous! I love it! I am also FMQ- challenged so was interested in reading all posts. Thank you all!

this is what I would do.

I love to hand quilt, but like you, sometimes I have trouble figuring out what to do. Always, at that point, I cross hatch. I would do that in each square, marking with a marking pencil about 1-1/2 inch. Sometimes I use a yard stick so I do not have to measure each time. I did this on a Chitstmas tree and stopped at the tree and continued on the other side of the tree. You could stop at the hand print. Hope this is helpful.

I think to echo quilting would be so cool, but if you want you could echo quilt at one or two inch away from the outer edge of the square.

Mad...that is just stunning work...I think echo quilting would look great and maybe following the waves in the design on the sashing. The idea of a cursive "hope" is brilliant too, but sounds amazingly difficult (I am a "machine" newbie, so the fear factor would be huge).

Please let us know what you decide...and pics would be fantastic.

Mad - Here's a simple suggestion, which I know is probably too late for you. SID the sashing betweent the hand blocks. Then 45 degree cross-hatch the hand blocks at 1/2" intervals. You can either cross-hatch over the hands or stop at the edge of each and SID around each hand. Your choice. Either would look fine. Or you could try to convince DH, that you just can't complete this quilt without Qbot and he should go out a buy it for you right away. Qbot comes with some heart motifs, which might be appropriate for this quilt.

What a fun quilt. I love it.....can't help you on the quilting question.

I was going to suggest cross-hatching about 1/2" apart. It would make the hands really stand out.

I like this suggestion best :) :)

I like the idea of echo quilting. It isn't near as hard as FMQ. JUst keep your quilting foot on the machine and all the curves will b smooth.

What wonderful bright colors! I would do echo quilting around the hands and stitch in the ditch everywhere else. It will be wonderful no matter how it's quilted! :-P
Ditter