Another Black and Red Finish

Hot on the heels of finishing Tic Tac Meow, I finally got around to quilting my red and black mini Sparkling Trail quilt that has been patiently waiting, since January 2015, for inspiration to strike.

 As you might have guessed, I played with my Westalee quilting templates/rulers.

 If you're wondering why the circles and pebbles don't go all around the circles, it's because they would not have fit exactly around, and I didn't feel like fussing with stretching or squeezing any of them to make things look like they fit perfectly, but I also didn't want a gap or an obvious overlap.  Partial strings of beads look very chic, random and modern, don't you think?  :)

Honestly, I was just playing with this quilt and making things up as I went along. The change in direction in the straight lines in the background add a little extra interest and movement to the otherwise simple background, but that was accidental.  I planned to do a diamond crosshatch in the background and started in that lower right corner.  Once I had crosshatched in the black stars, I decided it looked too busy and detracted from the circle quilting.  I stopped quilting in that corner, intending to come back later and pick it all out, and quilted the vertical lines in the rest of the quilt.  I went to bed, woke up, had breakast and pulled out the seam ripper to start ripping.  Hmm.  In daylight that little corner, part diagonal lines and part crosshatch looked like a rather interesting part of the whole.  Plus, that mindset saved me a lot of ripping!

You can see a little bit of the border treatment above, but it shows up even better on the back.

This is a border treatment I've been wanting to play with since I bought the feather templates.  These are just one side of a straight feather.  I started with a circle in the center of each side so I could make a tidy, orderly change of direction, and also liked how it broke up long stretch of feather lobes into more pleasing chunks.  I pondered how to turn the corners, then remembered old picture frames with scroll details that didn't always go all the way around the frame.  I decided to stop the feathers short of the corner and continue with plain straight lines around the corners to complete the "frame".  I love how it turned out and I think a larger version of this might come out to play when I finally get around to quilting the butterfly quilt.

I have quilted 5 versions of this quilt so far - 3 full scale throws and 2 reduced size ones, and each one needed a different quilting plan depending on the fabrics and colors.  Take a look:

I don't think I can choose a favourite...