From the Strawberry Patch...: auditioning quilting designs

Check out this Clover hoop; my new favorite!
With the clamp covered there are no more tangles.

This past summer I finished all the hand embroidery on twelve quilt blocks that I have been working on for a VERY long time. Well, I haven't actually been working on them, which accounts for the number of years that it has taken to get this project moving forward! I believe that I began on these around 2001 and picked them up sporadically. The patterns are by Indygo Junction: "By Wisdom A House Is Built".

I strayed from the pattern, making mine less primitive. Instead of fraying the edges and using applique I set my blocks into sashed borders. I changed the text font too. After all these many years, and thousands upon thousands of miles in the car (which is where I do my most productive handwork), I had the top set together last month. Each pattern can be finished and bound separately. I liked that look and decided to mimic it with one pieced quilt; inserting 3/4" strips of black (finishing to 1/4") between the blocks. Binding it with black will finish it off nicely and add continuity.

By Wisdom A House Is Built ~ 60" X 64"

It has hung on the design wall ever since; challenging me! How to quilt this? Machine embroidered elements aside, however would I quilt over all that hand embroidery? The patterns suggest very minimal quilting, by hand, in a primitive big-stitch manner. Okay, that wasn't going to happen. Each and every day I studied the quilt and considered options. I considered a panto; maybe I would load it onto Snowbird and thread it up with a monofilament and just go to town. Nah. Then I thought about cross-hatching the entire piece. Nah. A friend suggested channel-quilting it, long parallel lines of quilting over the entire piece. I considered that but rejected that too. I was stumped-- and yet, my mind kept working.

The other night I grabbed a marker and auditioned some quilting lines in the background. I liked what I saw with the whimsical, free flowing shapes. I decided that this might look good with cross-hatched borders. After that, things began to happen! I loaded up the quilt and got to work. Yes, this time I really did begin working in earnest, these blocks have languished long enough!