Quilting advice
 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]590330[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]590331[/ATTACH]I really don't know how to quilt this. It is for my daughter's wedding gift. I have until the end of June to finish it, it is a king and has a lot of open space. I am pretty good with straight line quilting, but free motion, not so much. I have a stencil that I really like and am pretty sure would work well, but then what about the dark stars and the rest of the open spaces? Just quilt a diamond qrid all over? meander? Please help I really want this to be a nice quilt, DD has had a rough couple of years and she really deserves it.

I like what you have planned for the white areas. Any quilting you do in the brown diamond areas isn't going to show much, so I wouldn't bust a gut there. I'd do some straight lines, maybe quilting from corner to corner in the outermost brown squares, to make an on-point diamond, with other straight lines in the middle, to make a motif or whatever. The same with the brown borders---quilting there isn't going to show up, so nothing fancy there, either. You could follow any border stencil you like, I just wouldn't make it one that's overly detailed. In the white spaces around the motif you have already marked, I think more feathers would set off the circle well and tie in with the feathers in the center of it. You can find many stencils for feathered borders, to repeat four times around the four "sides" of the circular motif.
Edited: Oh, I see those brown diamond areas aren't made of squares, but rectangles. But you still can stitch straight lines corner to corner, etc. in them.

Love the quilt! And your ideas with the ones from JustABitCrazy would make it look wonderful.

I agree with JustaBitCrazy. Your quilting in the white areas will become the star, so I would reinforce the structure of the diamonds with something fairly simple and rigid, like straight lines echoing your piecing. They will make perfect frames for your "flowers."

Also, I would suggest a thread color with a bit of contrast in the white (dark ivory/light beige?), but a something that blends in the dark areas.

JustABitCrazy's ideas combined with your beautiful stencil work sounds great. Maybe for the border just follow along with the large paisley motif in the fabric. If you don't want to have additional feathers in the white area, what about framing the stencil with a scroll motif. Let me see if i can draw what I'm thinking and send to you.

ok--can't get it to upload. But 4 long scrolls forming a diagonal frame--hope that makes sense.

Thanks for the ideas everyone. I am going to try to quilt it with the stencil that I have shown and then do exactly like Justabitcrazy said with dark parts, I think I understand what you mean by scroll, I will see what I can find that will fit. I have a few stencils that might work. I wish I could FMQ but after 15 years of trying I know what I can do, so stencils for me. lol At least if I mess it up too bad I still have 3 months to make another, (not so much white space). Thanks again for the advice.

Thanks Tartan, I tried this on a practice piece and you are right lots of turning, I think if I take my time I can do it, we will see anyway. It has been glue basted and I am sure I went overboard on it but I knew it was going to be pushed and pulled a lot.

Your stencil choice is lovely! It's not hard to extend the curved cross-hatch part of it out father (just continue the arcs out father) to make that part extend out over more of the light fabric, if that option appeals to you. (I would actually mark the extension on the fabric, rather than trying to eye-ball it, in order to keep the precision that you will have in the main part)

The suggestions above are really great and will be beautiful in the quilt. Yes, the negative space quilting will be the star. I have found that using stencils and FMQing them works quite well because I can position each square to work on and 'puddle' the rest of the quilt around the work area. I have not felt there was too much pushing, pulling or turning the quilt as I work.