I just posted a brief introduction, and already, I have questions! My dad called the other night and asked if I did any sewing, and if so, if I'd be interested in an unfinished quilting project of my late grandmother's/great grandmother's. Of course, despite the fact that I still haven't had time to actually sit down and practice much quilting, I was absolutely delighted at having such a treasure. So it's here now, but I'm not sure what to do with it now that I have it. The piecing is done, and the work is already sandwiched, basted and partially quilted to the batting and backing. However, there's no border, and the little quilting that has already been done simply follows the outline of the patchwork squares. So here are my questions:
1) Should I skip the idea of a border, which I'd like, and just do binding?
2) If a border is possible after the quilt is already this far along, how would I go about adding one, and would it be a ton of trouble?
3) What color border/binding would you recommend? I'm thinking red, since that's the dominant color, but I think dark blue would work, too. Not sure yet if a red border/binding would be too much red or not.
4) I'd like to dress up the quilting a little, and I was thinking of adding X's and O's to each square in a checkerboard fashion, but I'm a little worried about how that will turn out since this is not a perfectly pieced quilt and many of the squares don't line up just so. What do you think? Would it still look nice? Other design suggestions?
There are pictures of the work here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/amaranth320/
Any advice would be appreciated!
Mel