I am planning on making the pattern below in bright, busy, floral Oriental fabrics.

The quilt measures 50 x72 inches. The largest block is 9 inches square, the medium 6 inches and the smallest 3 inches square. The sashing is black and 1 inch wide. The border is 4 inches wide and black, but I thought I would change this to an inner 1 inch in black, then a pieced border of 2 inch squares from the block fabrics and then another 1 inch in black on the outer.
I really want to hand quilt it, as that gives me so much pleasure. My thoughts so far are,

- to leave the sashing unquilted, black on black my eyes can’t do, and to use a contrast thread would lose the effect of the black, do you agree?

- so, should I stitch in the ditch to separate the blocks from the sashing?

- as for the blocks, as the fabric is busy I guess an overall quilting pattern that I can adapt to each block size, but what? I prefer straight line quilting, but does it need curves to soften all the straight lines?

I really would appreciate any suggestions from those on this board whose quilting experience and knowledge is far greater than mine!!
Many thanks in advance.

http://www.robertkaufman.com/quiltin...ican_heritage/

I have no idea how to quilt it but I sure do like it. :)

This quilt is on my to-do list. Plan to use jewel tone batiks & insert Gift of the Spirit phrases in the thinner horizontal squares. My plan is to SITD but will watch this thread for additional ideas.

the circles on this picture look realy good you could do that

Lovely quilt and so glad some people still love to hand quilt. I agree with SID around black sashing. Also that the prints would totally overshadow the quilting. But, in the light squares or rectangles is a perfect place to showcase a pretty quilt design. It would be the highlight of the quilt. Luckily there aren't too many of them.

I agree with no quilting in the sashing, it looks fairly narrow anyway.

Question: The pic you showed has several blocks that are a solid cream color. Will you also be putting a solid color fabric in those spaces or will all blocks be bright Asian florals?

If you are doing a solid a hand quilted Sashiko type design would be striking.

I would definitely SID or 1/4" from the ditch to give the blocks definition. I am a big fan of outline quilting fabric motifs. I think that would work well with large flashy florals. For an idea of what I am talking about here is a link to a quilt I made where I outline quilted every cat in the batik print in the border.
http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-22344-1.htm

My initial thought is to do more decorative quilting in only the light blocks and in the ditch in the others unless the size requires a bit more quilting than straight quilting.
I have some specific designs in mind and can refer them to you. If you agree then I will describe how they can be rescaled to fit the spaces.
However, I hesitate to make specific design references since they come from one company and some may feel referring to one company is not appropriate. On the other hand they are stencils which I designed. What do you think.

I went back and reread your original post and note you are going to make the quilt. I didn't read carefully enough.
Do you intend to make it in the same colors as the pattern. That is, lights where the pattern indicates?
If not then my comments above may not be appropriate.

What a beautiful selection and placement of fabrics! I believe many oriental art "lines" are minimal, though I am certainly not an expert. I would suggest keeping the quilting simple and minimal to let the artistry of the quilt top maintain the focus.

You could do straight line diagonal quilting in most of it and then in square blocks do something like a ginko leaf outline (if that strikes your fancy). For the border, you could do something like sashiko type strait line quilting. Because the spacing in sashiko is longer than traditional quilting, black might be a possibility. But a gray or even the dark red in your fabrics would work and not detract form the gorgeous fabric and your peicing. Just a thought.
I love your quilt top. The finished quilt is going to be beautiful.

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. This isn't a quilt I have made yet, just the picture of the pattern, which I have included so you can see how the blocks are made up. The fabrics I intend to use are much busier, and although some are lighter and more tone on tone, they still won't really lend themselves to intricate quilting, but I like your idea of a ginko leaf outline.

Thank you for your ideas, and no there isn't any solids, just a couple of tone on tone. I looked at your quilt and it is really beautiful, I'm afraid my quilting is nowhere near as fine as yours though.

After reading your last post I can see that my ideas would not work. I assumed you were using the same amount of light values in the quilt. The busy fabric you say you are using would not show up decorative quilting. In the ditch and lines probably work better.

Beautiful!! I agree on leaving the black unquilted, but for the rest I'll leave for the pros on this board to help you :D

Does your cream fabric have the faint circles in it? If it does I think the contrast of the rectangles would be softened by quilting the cream squares folowing the large circular lines. Stitching in the ditch on the busy blocks lets the design of the fabric show through. Leaving the sashing unquilted will make it stand out.

Thanks to each and every one of you that posted. Your thoughts and suggestions have been very useful. I now feel confident about not quilting in the sashing, but outlining each block to add definition. The circles got me thinking, and I have decided on an orange peel design in each block, which looks quite effective across the whole quilt. Well, it does drawn out in draft! I shall make a trial block first and see how it looks. I just need the rest of my fabrics to arrive. I discovered a big drawback of ordering on the internet, is your parcel can arrive with one fabric missing, listed as out of stock and no longer available. This fabric just happened to be my first choice, which I had chosen all the others around! Still, I have found what I hope is a suitable replacement and it all helps to keep the creative juices going, I quess! I will post pictures for you to see when it is finished. Thanks again. :thumbup: