Celtic Knot on French Braid
 

So this is my Celtic Knot French Braid quilt, it is one of my very favorite quilts. The only issue I am having right now is deciding on the quilting. I can either free motion (not on a long arm sadly), embroider, or stitch in the ditch. Now I am leaning towards stitching in the ditch, the pattern/embroidery and fabrics speak enough without extras. But would love advice from experienced quilters.
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Beautiful!! and I can relate to the quilting part.

I can give you no advice about quilting but surely love your colors. How did you do the celtic knots? This is a great design.

Maybe if you SID and then embroider the Celtic knots in the black areas, top and bottom.

what a wonderful quilt! i agree with tesspug on the quilting

Your quilt top is stunning! I do agree that it does not need a lot of quilting in the braided/knot area but I would do some interesting quilting in the outer borders...maybe some celtic designs or McTavishing...what ever you do, it is a gorgeouse quilt!

Can't offer ideas on quilting,sorry, but you have done an outstanding job!! Your quilt is just stunning.

I also agree. Gorgeous quilt and superb piecing skills! I love the fabric blend!

that is beautiful, great job

Wow! what a dramatic beautiful quilt. My tastes lately have been leaning towards the warm color palette of reds, oranges. Your red on black is just stunning. Combined with a celtic knot motif you do have a real winner there.
I agree that the fabrics and colors you chose do speak quite enough with out extras. So I would make the quilting subdued on this as well. I completely agree with Tesspug that some SID and duplicate the embroidered knots in your black border would look stunning. I would be half tempted to create narrow bias strips and hand applique them. Just beautiful. Please post a picture of this when it is finished.

this is phenomenal. I always stitch 1/4 inch from each edge. love it.

WOW! A stunning quilt!

I can't stop looking at this quilt. Everything about it is stunning. Trying to get my courage up to do this pattern. One of my main problems is what color to use and the placement of those colors. Love the celtic knot motif. This would be a great quilt for my sister. She does Celtic dance and loves anything Celtic. BrendaK

Stitch in the Ditch or echo quilting

very pretty

Beautiful quilt! Look on Googlel, click images and type in Celtic quilting stencils to get some ideas. There are some simple ones that you can custom/modify to your quilt by tracing on paper and quilting over it on your quilt. Love to see what you decide to do and please post your finished quilt :)

Your decision to stitch in the ditch is a wise one. All you need is right there! :)
Thank you for sharing this amazing work of yours, Carolyn.

Beautiful quilt no doubt! No matter how you decide to quilt it, it can only make it more beautiful. Can't wait to see if once it is completed.

Your quilt is stunning!!!!!!!

I would personally do stitch-in-the-ditch so as not to take away from the pattern itself. Can you tell me what pattern you used?

That is one pretty quilt. Celtic knots intimidate me, but I really like the finished product.

Wow! What a stunner of a quilt. Hope you find inspiration for the quilting.

I can't help with the quilting but that is one gorgeous quilt.

Lovely quilt, really like the colors and celtic knots. Great job!!!

Gorgeous quilt!!!

Sorry for the delay, :p actually had to run out and buy backing material cause what I had was not enough....

In answer to the questions about the celtic knots, those are embroidered on. I used my Brother Innov-is 4000D. The designs are from Babylocks "Designers Gallery - Interactives, Celtic Knots"

The french braid part is my own design, once I figured out how to do french braids.

The fabric, strangely enough took me about 15mins to pick out these colors. The Red/Orange/Yellow one I am doing for my brother took us 2hrs. Just depends on what you have.

The knotwork specifically is stitched out using Floriani Rayon, varigated....Red/Brown/Black.

I did several table runners using the french braid method, and different embroidered centers. I even used the new circle attachment (think it was babylock's) and stitched out one using that. This type of quilt lends itself to embroidered/embellished squares very well.

Sadly, I have to have this finished by the next friday, in order to ship :p along with 2 pins, 3 purses, another quilt and 5 photos to frame....nevermind wrapping everything. So I dont really have time to add more stenciled/fancy designs or send out to a long armer. Think SID is best, let the fabric speak. The backing I bought today is a print, very similar to one of the red prints in there, with a solid black binding. Think it will be fine. Tis for my 21yr old son, who I hope like heck he understands the quality of what he is getting.

Finally, Thank you all so very much. This is one of my favorite quilts so far. I have several others that I have done this year. I am still learning but enjoying it all very much. And very last....the key to french braids is accurate cutting...once you do that, the rest is very easy!

Very striking:)

Love it! Very pretty.

Stunning quilt.

That is the most gorgeous french braid I have ever seen.

Your quilt is absolutely stunning, I would do a lot of SID quilting, you wouldn't want to distract from the quilt top. You could sneak in some celtic designs in borders and such. Please post a pic when you're all done, would love to see it. Thanks for posting, and P.S. if your quilt ever needs a home, it would have a really good home at my house !!! lol Thanks for posting.

Beautiful quilt! I wouldn't even dare make a suggestion on how to quilt that beauty. I'm sure you will figure it out, and it will be even more wonderful!

how about some type of celtic design that has straight lines. Your quilt is quite stunning this is one very unique quilt. Love it

Boy do I wish I could get my hands on this one! I've been sitting here studying it. I think your idea of SID is correct for the colored area. Then you have all that black. You have black diamonds on either side of the main large ones. I would quilt that celtic knot in those, in black. The sashings, I see, with a simple rope winding all the way through. I think I would also do the rope all the way around in the borders. Then you have the diamond centers to the braids themselves. I think I would just do curved lines around the interior. (we longarmers call them pumpkin seeds or orange peel) Then you have around your colored celtic knots. I think a tight stipple would set them off nicely. I'd do a little looser stipple in the triangles on either end of the braids.
Can't wait to see what you do with this beauty!

Just gorgeous no advice on the quilting - sorry!

Just lovely, great job and thank you for sharing,love the bright colors
Have a Blessed day
Ellen

Beautiful quilt!!
I agree quilting in the ditch gets my vote.

That is beautiful and I don't know enough about quilting to suggest to you except I agree with not to busy so it doesn't take away from the quilt it's self

wow wow what a wonderful quilt took my breath away for a while---st in ditch is a wise choice --let it speak for its self

Fantastic! I agree that the quilt can, very easily, stand alone. SID is what I would do.