Originally Posted by granny_59
I did not see on how to quilt over all those seams other than SID and the pieces where so little that I even missed the ditch sometimes.
By ignoring the seams. So you could have had flowing lines within the snake to give it more movement.
Or swirls or wavy lines in the sky to suggest wind or clouds.
Focusing on the elements in the design, not the pieces used to construct it.
And it could have been with a walking foot - it doesn't necessarily have to be FMQ (if that's out of your comfort zone).
I think what she's saying is that you spent all that time trying to make this visual image out of traditional blocks by painstakingly placing the colors so that the quilt top would be your Garden of Eden vision and not a bunch of kaleidoscope blocks....and then you just ignored that and did a SiTD, which refocuses the attention on the blocks instead of the overall image.
So the quilting didn't fit the design. That's all she's saying. I'm just guessing but it makes sense to me.
So on your next 1st place winning quilt, you'll just need to put as much thought into the quilting design as you did to the visual one.
Maybe you didn't realize that it was one of the things they even look at. So that score sheet should be your guide for the types of things judges look for. And binding - jeez, they're crazy about the bindings. ;-)