help quilting this please
 

I'll be switching between white and black thread on the body of this. should I stitch in the ditch around the blocks? Is it OK to skip a block so I can do all one color in a row before switching thread? Is it possible to do all of one color on the entire quilt and then going back and doing the other color? I plan to do the borders separately from the main body of the quilt. And most important, how do I quilt it. the obvious design is paisleys, but I don't want to do a dense quilting. I'll be doing it free-hand on my longarm. Thanks

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I shouldn't be commenting on this because I do everything on a long arm. I am assuming you are quilting on a regular sewing machine. Everyone's comments I have seen say to stabilize the quilt with some stitch in the ditch before you start doing any fancy thread changing and designs. Others have commented that you have to start in the middle and work your way out or the whole quilt will shift. On a long arm, I work my way back and forth from the "top" which is whichever side I choose to start on, continuing to straighten up the floated top with the floating batting and the pinned backing. I only roll as much as I need to work on. I hope someone more experienced & better at this than me replies to you.

fyi....your quilt is absolutely beautiful. Yours is one of the best uses of individual pictures with continuity that I have seen. Kudos!!!

Barb, Thanks for the compliment. I'll be using my longarm

I think if you do the white portions first and then roll back to the black you will be ok. Not sure I follow about the SID and skipping a block, I would either SID all or none.

I would first sid all the longest seams, like along the borders. Then I would sid around the outside of the cat blocks. After you do that, the entire quilt is stabilized and you can jump around whichever way your thread colors dictate.

Since its on your longarm, you could SITD around your blocks and along your borders to stabilize them, then go back and stitch everything you want in one color, then change to the next color, and so on. That's what I've done in the past though I just tried my hand at SITD for the 1st time on my last quilt and only went around the sash and border as I was going to use E2E in the center of the quilt. This is just what I've read elsewhere. Someone else might have better ideas. Also, I used Monopoly in smoke color and you could barely see it on any of the colors.......dark or light.

Thanks JustABitCrazy and Snooze 2978. that is exactly what I needed to know. I don't have monopoly thread but I have some 100 weight microquilter thread on the way.