That's beautiful! I really like your sketch of the quilting. Go for it! Be sure to share a picture when you're done.

Thank you everyone for your lovely compliments!

Yes, this usually works very well, along with keeping the quilting simple on complex fabric/piecing, and then doing the more interesting quilting when the fabric is a solid and/or the piecing is simple. I learned that the hard way, I once had to pick out quite a bit of quilting I'd done on a border because the piecing and fabric were just too busy for the pattern to show up.

I forgot to mention that in the LJ quilting group, we came to the decision that the border might be a good spot for beading, using little matte seed beads scattered about randomly. I can always decide that when I get to it.

I really am stuck with the top half of the shell, though. I'm not sure that what I've sketched will look good. I'm now wondering about running the curved lines the other way, so that they follow the curve along the top of the shell. And what do I do with the triangles, the bits meant to represent the sea lapping over the side of the shell? Do I do the same quilting pattern for them over the two little beige triangles further down?

This is a perfect idea for your quilt.

What a wonderful quilt. I like your idea for the quilting just as you have shown.

For the borders my thoughts would be simple straight stitches evenly spaced apart at a 90 degree angle to the water. I like how you have the quilting over the water on top of the shell.

My idea of the border stitching would be similar to boardwalk planks. I hope this makes sense.

If you add any other embellishments I would add them to the shell. IMHO

Good luck with your project and be sure to keep us updated with pictures.

Pam M

Wow Lobster!! First off welcome to the board I am really glad you have found us because based on this quilt and your avatar quilt you are one very, very talented quilter! I can't wait to see more of your pictures, especially a bigger one of your avatar (hint hint) . :D

I absolutely love what you have sketched out for your quilting. I would not carry the wave motif down to the beige triangles in the shell. What you have sketched is just perfect.

Your border idea of adding embellishments there sounds good too. Some other options for your border could be the traditional clamshell pattern or the traditional "wave" pattern. Because the border is so narrow at only 1.5" I think the clamshell might work a bit better.

Hello! The full picture is at http://img837.imageshack.us/i/isisquiltfinalphoto1.jpg/. I made it for the UK 2010 Hoffman Challenge, and to my delight it won. It was great fun to make and I show it off at every conceivable opportunity! I keep a quilting blog at http://lobsterdesigns.dreamwidth.org/, some of the pictures have vanished (curse you, LiveJournal photo hosting) but most of my quilts are still visible.

I'm thinking of changing the direction for the lines in the top part of the shell, after looking at some real nautilus shells, so I'll put up a photo of that sooner or later. Of course, I've just sketched it and I'm not sure whether I like it. However, one thing I have decided is a good idea is to use a medium copper brown thread over the bottom half of the shell and cream thread over the top half.

For some reason, I just don't like clamshells. No idea why. Which wave pattern did you have in mind?

you could do curved cross hatching in every other shell curve to give the shell a textured look.

on the border you could do spiral feathers.

I think the quilt is too small for those, it's only 22" x 26", but they're great ideas and it's all getting me thinking. The curved bits in the bottom of the shell are really quite small. You know that rule about don't sew a curved seam smaller than 1"? Well, the centre of this quilt has curved pieces which are 1/2" x 1/4"!

Normally I hate feathers, but I've just looked up spiral feather quilting in Google Image and I'm rather taken by it. Though not for a 1.5" border, of course.

Lovely! How about echo quilting from the shell out and following the lines within the shell?