I took this striking quilt off my frame last night.  I knew when I first looked at it that I wanted to do some motif in the large black setting triangles.  I doodled around for a while and came up with something that I thought echoed some of the designs in the prints.  I also knew I wanted to try blue thread in the black triangles.  The piecer of this top – Cheryl – is so great.  She just tells me to play with her quilts.  I’m so thankful she trusts me with her cool quilts. 

So, what did I do and why did I do it?  I already talked about the black triangles with blue thread.  Why blue?  I pulled the blue from the blocks just adjacent to the black material.  I actually thought about going back and doing a second pass of orange along with the blue, but I eventually dismissed that as a bit too much.  I think it helps bring everything together.

The outer border kind of gave me pause.  I wound up following the stripe in the border and did a double opposing wavy line.  In between those stripes I did a swirl vine that was a larger version of the same swirl vine I used in the black sashing.  The outer border was done in green thread (thanks Margaret for the tip on that) and I also used green in the “star” blocks.  I used gray Sulky in the orange half-square triangles adjacent to the white and black print.  In those blocks I outlined the motif in the black/white print and did the same swirl pattern emanating from the motif into the orange 1/2 sq triangles.  In the blue blocks surrounding the inner edge of the black triangles, I did pumpkin seeds – treating the 1/2 square triangles and the large print fabric next to it as one block.   The star blocks were quilted with the same swirl design in the middle and 1/2″ straight lines in the background blocks in an effort to emphasize the stars as much as I could.

I know that a lot of the quilting won’t show, but a big portion of it will show up in the right light, and I think it suits the quilt.  I seriously considered an all over pattern for the middle of the quilt, but decided to go this route to try to play up the star blocks.  Thanks again Cheryl for letting me play!  Next up is a small Gees Bend type quilt.  I get to play on it also!!