I'm making a tree skirt and I stitched in the ditch so all my blocks are secure, but I would like to put a holly leaf in the dark red boxes. How would I go about doing this? I understand I need to trace it onto the quilt and I have a marking pen to do this, but how would I quilt it on? I've never fmq before and I'm thinking this is the only way to do it. Any suggestions??

I would HAND quilt it.

if you have never free motioned then you should learn to do do that first before applying to the finished tree skirt.
otherwise hand quilt it.

I agree. Unless you are a natural at FMQ, you would need a lot of practice first. The curves on the holly leaves are too tight to use a regular or walking foot.

I agree with hand quilting. A few holly leaves would not take that long. Then make up some practice squares to try FMQing on.

Put some scrap quilt sandwiches together and try your hand at free motion quilting based on the drawing or some other simple outlines. Some people get it the first time around. Just don't be discouraged if it's harder than it looks. Keep practicing. That's what I hear anyway! ;)

I like hand quilting so this was my first choice, but I wanted to know if I could do it on my sewing machine. thanks guys!

it will look great

Just tracy the leaves with chalk and machine quilt it.

Although you could FMQ holly leaves, if you are not comfortable with FMQ, you could trace holly leaves w/ the marking tool of your choice and machine quilt over those lines. That's how I did a Christmas topper a couple of years ago. If you do an internet search for "holly leaf" you'll find one you can use for your outline.

I would hand quilt

Yeah, I would hand quilt it if I were you. Trying to machine quilt something so complicated for the first time would be tough.

If you want to FMQ your design practice, practice, practice! And relax & have fun with it! I made this quilt a few years ago & I made some quilt sandwiches, traced my design on them & practiced making the holly leaves dozens of times until I felt confident enough to try it on my quilt. Yours looks like a continuous design like mine & that is a good choice when you are just starting out ( I was too, still am really!)

If you were trying to put the holly leaves on a quilt, you would want to FMQ them with your FMQ foot. Since it is just a tree skirt, you should be able to machine quilt it with your regular foot on and just flip your tree skirt around as you do the outline. If you have a machine with needle down on it, use that as you stop and reposition the skirt to continue sewing. It sounds like you enjoy hand quilting so that would be a nice finish also.

If you haven't put the skirt together yet, and if it doesn't make any difference to you whether the design shows on the reverse or not, I would trace the holly pic. on the block, and then sew around the leaf on each block then put the skirt together. That way you wouldn't have much of anything to turn. Or you could do a reversible type skirt quilting each block as you go,unless you just didn't want strips between your blocks. I would not try FMQ on it, if you mark the leaf on the block, just follow the outline of the leaf.

I, too, would hand quilt it, it seems easier that way to me.