Machine Quilting: Elegant Cakewalk

Darlene tested this pattern out for the designer and then it sat. And sat. And when it came time to think of a quilt to enter into the Lake Farmpark Quilts 2014 Show, this was the one, so she pulled it out and asked me to quilt it and enhance it's beauty.

 For this quilt, Darlene switched up the colors and planned out the design a bit more than the original. She also chose just a few metallic fabrics and kept the entire palette limited, but it looks so great. I had to experiment a bit with this quilt due to all of the metallics and busy prints. It makes no sense to quilt a bunch of detail in an area if you're not even going to see it. So this is what I came up with:

 My new-found favorite dahlia-type flower design worked well to fill either side of the "ornaments". The red border was quilted in red thread and I used an elegant swirl pattern that had enough points to mimic the rest of the quilting.

 Here you can see the blocks better. My first gut instinct when I saw this quilt was to quilt ribbon candy in the center of each "ornament". The rest of the quilting fell into play after that.

 I did the same design in each block, but from block to block the direction switched from horizontal to vertical and the fabrics flip-flopped so it looks a little different in the two blocks.

When I switched thread colors, I also went back and quilted the cornerstone pieces in a similar design to the blocks.

With a quilt like this and many others where there are areas that deserve different types of quilting, here's my best tip: Try to keep it as simple as possible. Each of the designs I chose mimics a part of each other design (except the ribbon candy in this one). If the designs work well together, it'll give the quilt a finished look. Now with that said, one or two "accent" quilting designs can set a quilt off (like the ribbon candy here).

Thanks, Darlene! I can't wait to see it hanging in the show!