Finally quilting....

I said I would put the knitting needles away so that I could and would get to my quilting projects.  

I pulled this customer quilt off the long arm this evening.

I have been procrastinating on this one.  I find it hard to knuckle down when the time line is open ended (no rush) and the design is up to me.  Lots of open space and what to do with it caused me  to think and rethink my design decisions.  

I finally decided to "divide and conquer"....something I heard a fellow long armer say.  

So, I took the length of the ivory area and the width and divided it up in sections.  I then drew out a feather pattern on a piece of tissue paper a quarter of the width of the fabric to fill that area.  I liked what I came up with and then stitched down the spine of the feather to perforate it. 

I then took my chalk pounce pad and marked the spine four times across each ivory strip.  

From there, I free motioned the feathers.  

I thought that was the hard part, but then I had to decide what to put in the...what I will call Chinese Coins.....area.

I think I had a harder time figuring that out than I did the feathers.

Anyways, the blocks were all different sizes....2", 4" and 7".  So, I decided to divide the larger block in half and this is what I came up for this area.  

Curvy lines and petals.  The only block that didn't get petals was the 2" block.  

I used an Ivory Glide thread on top and a golden colored So Fine thread on the bottom. 

This is what the back looks like. Here you can really see the overall quilting design.  

I have a few threads to weave in, blue marker to remove and dust off the chalk marks and then this one is ready to go home.  

Ok....tomorrow, another customer quilt goes on the machine.