I have machine pieced, hand appliqued a quilt top (about twin size). The applique is in the main middle section and on 4 borders (middle with a small plain border on the inside and outside of it) and four inner corners. The main applique is a flower pot (free pattern from fatcatpatterns modified to make it bigger and easier --http://www.fatcatpatterns.com/images...owerPots_1.pdf to give you an idea of what I started with).

I plan to quilt it on a domestic machine and am thinking about just quilting around the applique but not through it. I think if I quilt through it, it will get too flat. I like that it is slightly puffy.

I have good ideas on how to quilt the non-applique part, but am wondering whether the back will look funny if the applique part is NOT quilted....If I do quilt inside the pieces, that means changing thread colors on top a lot.

any suggestions?

almost all appliques need at least a little quilting, and yes it's usually a pain in the ????????, but worth it. besides the back looking odd the batting may shif if it's a pretty big piece. you could do a little hand stitching, easier to change thread color.

The first thing I take into consideration is the batting, and how closely the package recommends that you quilt. Then I decide how to quilt the top. Sometimes you have to quilt through the applique, or portions of it, to avoid sagging in that area later :D:D:D

I do a lot of floral applique & most times just quilt around outside edges of applique - not all the individual pieces unless they are very large.

if you use a Print-fabric for your backing the stitches will not be very noticable so no one will be able to tell the areas that are different.

I have a hand appliqued quilt that I plan to had quilt. I am not going to quilt in the flowers bu echo quilt around them. But they are not big pieces so the quilting will be fairly close all over.

I don't think it will look bad on the back or shift unless quilting is far apart. I will probably use W&N and it can be quilted 10" apart.