It is a beautiful quilt top. I tend to go toward hand quilting. It's the reward for all that sewing!

I recently saw a quilt quite similar to yours where they did stich in the ditch down the sashing. In the 4 patch a design was quilted that covered the entire 4 patch

Blue is my favorite color as well. It is beautiful. I have only tied quilts by hand or stitched in ditch on machine for smaller projects. So I will listen to more experienced quilters as well. But beautiful. Teresa

Thank you all for your replies and nice comments! This quilt is for my almost 16 year old son...I am thinking I will do the stitch in the ditch for the white rectangles and diagonals for the rest. Still not sure about the border...but I do like the egg and dart pattern that was suggested. I have this very same top already done with Moda Soiree. I had wanted that one to be the one I first machine quilt on (since it will be for me). Will try something different for that one. I used a blue jelly roll that I got off ebay for this one and was quite pleased with the selection.

Oh...and I got this pattern from a book titled 'Jelly Roll Quilts' by Pam and Nicky Lintott

Thank you again, so much, for all your help!

Now to get it done..

Lovely quilt. You did such a good job. I like the diagonal idea too.

Very pretty quilt, whatever quilting route you choose will only make it prettier.

Very pretty quilt. I'm sure your son will love it.

Rachelg, I had a quilt with warm/natural as the batting & was having all kinds of trouble HQ it. Someone on a quilt group that I belong to said it is very hard to HQ through W/N. I sat down & took out all of the stitching that I had done (it was really quite alot)took uot the w/n & replaced it with Quilters Dream Request. It is like quilting through butter. As different as day & night. I thought it was me as I hadn't HQ for 25 yrs & I thought I had lost my touch. I will keep the W/N for my machine quilting. Just a thought. Have you HQ using W/N before?

I had heard once that stitching in the ditch was not good for the seams, but that may before good machine stitching (seams, that is).
Personally, I like to see the quilting, especially if I did it by hand, so in the ditch can be less visible.
1/4 inch from the seam is easy to do: after a while you really know what 1/4 inch is!
I have done diagonal lines and such and find my stitches start to wander, even if I think I know where I'm going...
:0

hi...thanks for your post! I just finished a quilt I handquilted with W/N....it was challenging sometimes. Sore hands and fingers some days, but it was okay. I am using warm and white for this one, but have not started yet. I have not tried the Quilter's Dream Request. I have some Quilter's Dream Cotton...same thing?? Also have some bamboo and hobbs wool to use....looking forward to a project with those battings. I have a very large UFO that I would love to handquilt with something that quilts like butter!