This is a tablerunner that I have just finished piecing. Now I am ready to machine quilt and I am a relative newby and am not very good at free motion quilting yet. I am comfortable doing boxes within the squares and then echoing the flying geese with a free motion stitch but was wondering if you thought that would look too "boring"? The back is white - would you suggest a pastel multi-color thread or white thread? As I said, I'm not very experienced so my work is NOT beautiful...(yet)! I would appreciate some suggestions! Thanks.

I think it is very pretty! If you aren't confident with your quilting, use white thread for the back. How would you feel about circles in each block? I mean each complete block, not each square... Then a stipple or meandering stitch for the rest....Just a thought! :D :thumbup:

My circles are not exactly round yet (of course I have been practicing with Leah Day's 365 day website for beginners) - and what size would you think? Like squishy pebbles together or quarter size?

Your choice of quilting would not be "boring". You are adding yet another personal touch to your project! If you feel confident about what you do quilt, you will be happy when it is finished. Please show pics when it is done! :)

I like Ditter's idea. I think that would look great. If you don't feel confident about free motion yet (neither do I!!) you could always make circles on each block with a stencil or template or anything round you have in your cupboard and use a fabric marker to draw around. Then you could go pretty slow and follow the marks. Very nice, BTW!

Am chicken, I would stipple the whole thing in white

Actually, I'm not wild about stipple and since it is such an old fashioned fabric choice, I was thinking maybe something alittle bit funky to make it "modern" - straight "greek" squares in each block was my first thought, but I could possibly do some type of circle - what size of circle would look good do you think? Also, on thread choice, I think the white would show up more on the front than the pastel multi-color which might blend in more - what does everyone else think?

You could just run straight lines from corner to corner in the blocks. Then do 3 rows of echo quilting in the white triangles. Echo quilting just means straight lines in the triangles...just go from inside border edge to point and back down other side to the border again.

I like the idea of echo quilting.

I just finished a D9P for my DDIL using charm packs and it turned out great. I love piecing and putting the quilt together BUT I hate the quilting part because I get too stressed if it's not perfect. I thought about taking it to a longarm quilter and letting them do it but I was too cheap so I decided to do a straight stitch on the diagonal from upper left corner to lower right corner. I laid it out on my kitchen table and used 2 rulers to line up the lines and marked them with a chalk marker. Easy peasy! Looks great and I didn't have to be stressed out! I've tried several times to free motion but just can't get the hang of it. Not coordinated enough, I guess...LOL. My point is...sometimes simple is best :)