I love this thread! I admire the beautiful quilts shown on this amazing board and elsewhere. However, I almost exclusively piece tops targeted for a teen boy audience BECAUSE I know they are under served in the charity quilt world. I expect my quilts to be USED to DEATH! This allows me lots of freedom from overthinking the quilting process that I so love and gives me such pleasure. I've put together 26 tops so far this month and have another 5 or 6 in various stages of completion. I also prepare the backs for these tops before they go on to the next stage of their completion to our guild's amazing longarm charity quilters and binders.
Often I don't even start with a pattern, just start sewing things together. I just finished a double jelly roll race quilt in all shades of orange and dark green - just a mishmash but it looks great with the orange basketball prints taking center stage. What's a double jelly roll? I don't know! I just started sewing WOF strips together in twos and decided to do them up in the JRR fashion. I pressed the ends down for my angled joining strip stitches and went at it! This method will win EVERY race! LOL!
I know this approach to quilting doesn't work for everyone but I get a whole lot of nice tops done. Last year alone, our rather rural area guild distributed over 600 quilts to charity. Think how many deserving people would have gone lacking if we'd have been "particular" and all our quilts are well received and look great!
Free yourself from overthinking this process. I have never enjoyed quilting more!