Quilting uncertainties

I don't know. Maybe I've overkilled. I sort of got carried away on my quilting and am stuck again.

You would think that quilting is an easy thing to decide upon though most of us would agree that it isn't so easy to do.

My first decision when confronted with the completed flimsy was "What design do I want to do?"

This quilt didn't seem to lend itself to an overall design so I got onto Google Images and spent HOURS (over a week) looking at Mexican Star quilts worldwide and then machine quilting in general. I Googled "Mexican Stars", "Stars", "Batik Stars", "Domestic Machine quilting", "Diane Guardinski", even "Mexican Tiles"! I also secretly lurked on many of your blogs and googled into your files or just scrolled endlessly through your pictures. Didn't touch that sewing machine for the week!

Finally decided on a quilting motif for the STAR part. Same process for deciding on the WHITE part. That's when I let out the first plea. This is ridiculous! If I were getting paid by the hour I'd be a millionaire and I haven't even put in a stitch! I sort of felt like someone who studies the Bible forever and is afraid to get into the world and put it into practice!

"DO IT, TANYA!"

Nope, even with the quilt sandwich and a general idea of motif I now had to agonize over threads. Do I want to use "Shimmer" thread or plain white or brown or run out and try to locate invisible thread or what? Oh, do it with "Shimmer".

"STOP!" Shimmer is not so great!!! Take it all out (just a few inches) and choose another thread. Sigh.

Hey, this one looks good (gradation colors. I love those). It looks good on the colored parts of the quilt but on the white?... Oh well...

Now, how to move between stars and motifs and blocks? That took another block of time just tracing my finger over stars and motifs and blocks... This quilt is still not getting quilted~~

And finally plunge in. A little shaky there at first. By the time I finished with my gradation thread I was getting the flow of the quilting but that first hour's work looks pretty bad up close. Do I want to take it out? No way! I wouldn't even be able to follow the quilting lines to take it out!

Next to the white parts. My quilting isn't good enough to do this in dark thread and I decided white would show the mistakes less. Even so...



And then down to the corner white area. Now this was a challenge and actually a lot of fun! I am quite please with this job but I do seem to have over quilted. I don't want to put anything in the big white opposite area just because my "fan" shows up so nicely... But didn't you tell me that quilting density should be the same throughout the quilt? Can I leave this space?

And now the big question. With all the dense quilting, I'm going to have to do something in the border. Simple isn't going to work here, is it... Can I just get away with a few lines?

And here I sit writing a post and not getting anywhere near my quilt. I guess I'm still Bible studying.