How should I quilt this?
 

I've been looking at this quilt for days, looking through books for inspiration and am still wondering----how should I quilt this? I've played with drawing on the photo too, but still looking for ideas. BTW, I sewed the stars together in a class I took 28 yrs ago and they are all from the same fabric.

The quilt is 4 stars long and 3 stars wide. It looks baggy cause it is hanging over my stair railing but it isn't at all. It lays nice and flat, no fullness in the borders although the photo sure makes the borders look full and baggy :)

THANKS!!!

I would stitch in the ditch around each of the points of your star blocks and around the outside edges to really make these blocks pop out and do curling feathers around these blocks and through the offsetting railroad blocks.

Definitely a beautiful quilt but such a great challenge. I would first stitch in the ditch around each block. Then find a stencil that will work in the sashing. I use to quilt stars with free motion stitching curves on the two edges of the triangle then arch with a curve to the center, curve back up on the other side, that way you have the center stitched. (you can draw light chalk lines so you have a reference for stitching your arcs. Draw a vertical, the horizontal and the two diagonal line for each star). I would try to find a stencil of a star that would work in the striped bock and show your quilting ability shine there. The border looks quite wide so any stencil you have that will fit. Sometimes simple cables sometimes work the best. You don't want the quilting to interfere with the beauty of the quilt. I have always felt that quilting should enhance the design, not distract. GOOD LUCK!! Any questions, just PM me.

Shadow quilting would be good. Are you hand quilting or machine quilting?

First question: How comfortable are you with doing the quilting yourself?

I don't usually do SID. To me it is a cop out. Shadow quilting would be preferable to me.

I'd create a pattern for the stars: either something loopy to fit into each of the points and repeat with each point ... or possibly even straight lines to accentuate the points. Though I prefer the the movement of more loopy. I'd do smaller meandering on the areas on the star blocks that are not part of the star.

On the rail fence type of block you could either repeat whatever you did on the stars.

The sashing I'd do something that would complement the star and rail fence blocks. Your choice: vines, crosshatch, or small stars repeated.

I like the idea of drawing different designs to see what 'trips your trigger.' That way you can choose what you like best.

ali

I would probably do some kind of smaller echo star inside each star may be 2x's and a stripple on the outside of the star. I would like to make the stars pop because they are so nice. Maybe echo stars in the alternating blocks as well

I will be doing the machine quilting on my long-arm. I'm rather new to LAQ, having completed about 30 full-size quilts and many were free-motion quilting.

All the suggestions were great. Whatever you decide will be lovely. Very nice quilt. Thanks for sharing.