The top is finished, now comes the quilting. This is always the hardest part for me. The decisions for quilt designs are overwhelming and as I look at the quilt, I freeze.
I'm trying a wool batting. I never used this before but have heard good things. I started in the center and outlined all the "trees" and their shadows and put in branches. The I quilted in some deciduous trees, then stippled the background.
Moving out to the border I outlined and branched the leaf blocks with a matching thread then echo quilted to the edges.
That was the obvious way to go with the quilting. I put the quilt back on the design wall and stared at it for days trying to decide how to do the alternating blocks and corner squares. I thought about using the leaf designs and doing the same thing as the sunprint blocks, but that seemed to be overdoing it. I finally came up with the idea of doing different background designs: teardrops, fans, wood grain, water. The brain freeze defrosted! These designs felt right and as I quilted, they fell into place and gave the border more texture and interest.
The corner blocks were done in E's and W's.
Below is the final result with a narrow binding of dark green attached.
I guess now that I'm done I should get back to straightening and cleaning. NOT!!!
