Margarita wrote: Why, thank you.

Sometimes you just see ideas in the minds eye and know that they will work. For this one I saw the borders, then with help from my friends here, went looking for patterns that were built on hsts and when I couldn't decide between the final 2 decided to use them both. But I was not able to go completely random with the colours - it didn't 'taste right' to me.

Thank you Posy P, I shall have a look at the Windows Paint thing when I get a chance. I love your half triangle quilt, what vision!

You can do a similar thing in Windows Paint, just be careful to change the title of the file/picture after your alterations!

My poor husband, I cannot spend any more time quilting!! How interesting, I thought it might be photoshop - probably because that's the only one I have heard about! I shall quilt from the front as I can use the block lines for masking tape and the two skinny borders will give it some order then clamshell/fans in the outside borders. Thank you so much for all your help, I appreciate it more than you can know down here on Planet Venezuela! However we do have supermarkets and I think I had better get out and go to one.

Because the fabrics on the front of the quilt are so busy, your quilting will not show up much anyway, so why not quilt it from the back? It will be lots easier to see your markings there!

As for drawing on the picture, it just so happens that TODAY (March 3, 2012) is the first day of an on-line class by the Pixiladies about how to do this using PhotoShop Elements! The class is offered by Carla Barrett's Step on Pins web site and you can probably still sign up if you are interested:
http://moodle.steponpins.com/
(There are several TQS members taking the class!)

I work on a Wacom Bamboo Touch/Pen tablet that came with PhotoShop Elements software.
http://www.amazon.com/Wacom-Bamboo-Pen-and-Touch/dp/B002OOWC3S

What a clever lady you are Margo! I love your idea, so simple and quick but effective. As for being able to draw lines on the photo I am more than impressed, I suppose that is a computer program you use?
The back panel has nothing to do with the dimensions on the front, I just loved the fabric and wanted to use it up here and never gave a moment's thought to the quilting. Next time I will know better, why do I have to learn by huge mistakes?!!

This is the quilt I got on the forum for help with centering the front and back and that's when I learned that really I should have basted red thread through the crosslines to see better. The chalk and the markers just didn't work for me on batting. However, I am pleased to say that the back panel meets perfectly at the short ends with the outside edge of the first border. Lengthwise it is a different story, 2.5 inches on one side and 1.75 inches on the other into the first border.

I think I can cross-hatch the central front panel and the next border and then put the clamshell/fan in the outside border. The last two borders measure 10 inches together which I think is enough for the clamshell/fan. What do you think?

Margarita, I'm not sure this is what you had in mind, but when I saw the back, I immediately thought that this clamshell/fan would work great there. Because you said that you wanted it done quickly, I would just do a simple cross-hatching in the center of the quilt. From the front it will probably be a simple task to just quilt diagonals across the piecing. Hope this helps!

Well it seems to me that you could mark up your centre panel to begin with and take it from there. Start at one side and mark the whole centre and then you can start the stitching from the centre. But I am not an expert at all - just very opinionated I am sure there are lots of other quilters with a ton of hand quilting experience who could probably advise you better.

Two photos, one of the front and one of the back. The photos really bring out the reds in the quilt but they are not as shocking as they look, I am actually quite pleased with the result considering I didn't agonize as much as usual! Thank you for the help Margo, I had to print out the Tips for the Forum and then slowly go at it, I couldn't see how to get a photo out of my Picasa file but had to use boring old My Pictures instead. In the preview I see that if you click on the photo it gets bigger which is quite helpful, don't know if this will happen when it's posted though. Here goes!!

Margarita wrote:
Margarita, please post a photo here. Maybe we can help you decide? If you need help posting a photo to the forum, you will find some tips here:
[url]forum/forum-questions-and-suggestions/4275-tips-for-using-the-tqs-forum[/url]

You can do this! It's easy!

Okay but I'm not very brilliant at this! Later I will take a photo of the quilt and post it to my TQS profile place? I am thinking of doing two lines of baptist fans in the outside border and other stuff (?) elsewhere!

You are right Juliet, this won't work with the way you quilt. I quilt the same way without a hoop or a frame. If your quilt is made up of squares or blocks then you should be able to draw the quilt pattern a block at a time working from the centre out. If you are going to wash it afterwards then you could use pencil but I believe it is best to use a lead pencil rather than a graphite one. I use a white chalk pencil for dark fabrics and a pencil for light fabrics. If you use the water-soluble blue pens you really have to immerse them completely in water to be sure of getting it out. I know lots of people seem to use the Crayola washable markers too. Will you post a photo of the quilt so that we can see it and maybe somebody will come up with a better suggestion?

This is a link to an article about hand quilting baptist fans etc. http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/4286/quilt-it-freehand. However if you read it all (which I finally did without skimming!) you will realise that this will only work if you quilt on a frame. I spray baste my quilts and if they are big, roll 'em up with bicycle clip and hand quilt on a large table. If I tried quilting around the outside first there might be a lumpy disaster in the middle and that is not a result/risk I wish to take. However the article has given me some very interesting ideas for hand quilting. As long as you are careful/test what you mark with it should all come out in the wash. I was taught to chuck it in the machine on hot by Deborah Kemball and then they come out looking all nice and antiqued (not already old!). To tell the truth I have so far only managed very warm, cannot bring myself to hit the hot button. Thanks for your freezer paper suggestion, very interesting for a smaller quilt.

Thank you for the compliment, Margarita! Quilting keeps me sane because it provides such a great balance to my stressful job.

Maybe, I should try this Baptist/Methodist/something else pattern sometime. The names alone make me smile. I was brought up as a Lutheran Protestant, married in a Methodist church, had my sons baptised in an Anglican church and work in a school that's linked to the local Minster.

I seem to remember that someone handquilted a similarly curvy pattern. She cut the shape of the curve out of freezer paper, ironed in onto the top of the quilt, quilted along the edge of it and then repositioned the freezer paper. Every so often she had to cut a new freezer paper template, because the one that had been used several times didn't stick anymore. But she was left when the quilt was finished without any marks that had to be removed.