You all have given me lots to work on..Ritzy..I laid out blk and reg batt and the only place I
could see a color change was in the palest yellows and pinks! I think I'll gamble on the trade-off
as those colors can take a little toning down anyway. I'm glad I checked and I'm sure if all had
not been batik, it might have been different outcome !As for the Superior thread....Well,Rita.. lets just say
my budget took a hit ! Those Rainbows are so pretty..I have some now ! And have you seen all the
wonderful fabric ?? OMG ! Needless to say...... Will get to basting up in a day or two, if you have other ideas...

If it were I, Marilyn, I would have no hesitation working from the back. The backing you have makes for beautiful, large swirls. Go for it! It would be free-flowing and as long as you don't linger but come to a complete stop when you have to, I don't think you would get bird's nests.

I did that recently for the first time but used a walking foot instead of free motion quilting. And all of my starts and stops ended at the edge of the quilt so I didn't have to worry about bird's nests. Make a sample block first to check your tension and thread color. I turned my sample block into a pillow.

Great quilting design in your backing! definitely the easiest marking option going especially if you have sorted out how to avoid birds nests on the back.

Good thought...I will check that out !!

Marilyn, I think that is a wonderful idea--as soon as I saw the fabric I thought that. My only concern would be the black batting. You might want to put it under the top and see if it changes the colors. Sometimes that can happen and in this case I think it would dull all those pure colors. Just a thought.

Marilyn I love that backing fabric and it's a perfect design idea for the front too. Go for it girl. I have never done it myself so I really don't know what the pitfalls could be. Once you have the knack of pulling up the threads at the beginning and end of the work then there is nothing to worry about. And the motifs are close enough that you should be able to run one into another. Good luck with it.

Brilliant idea, you'll be an ace at swirls and feathers when you're done

If that's the case, I'd do it in a minute. I might start looking for backing fabric with overall quilting patterns in mind. It's a great idea.

I use an series 820 and bring my threads to the top so haven't had trouble that way...will do a sample first ,of course !
Thanks for the encouragement!

I love the idea of quilting it upsidedown. I like the design and I like not having to mark. If it were me my only hesitation would be the bird's nests that tend to form on the underside of my quilts. I am getting fewer and fewer of them. Are they a problem for you? Otherwise, I'd say, go for it!

Ok..so here's a thought...the blocks are 5 inch sqs and sashes are one and a half inches and overall size is about
70 x 80 in.s , lg lap the patterns says. Because of all the seams...I think less would be best...not too much quilting.
diag. curved lines might be good, going from big blk to little block, big and little melons?...but then there 's that sash !
Over-all pattern sounds good to me...Consider this...the backing fabric has a dandy motif of petal/ paisley shapes..
how about quilting it upside down using the back for the design? NO MARKING ! I've not tried that...maybe this is the one !
Any pitfalls to look out for ? :shock: Oh, I'm using a Hobbs black cotton batting so no white bits bearding thru ! Sorry..picture
is washed out under the lights.

I'm the last to give good quilting advice... but I will be very interested in what you finally decide. I love the colors and the fact that the borders in a sense mimick the squares in the quilt itself as another series of squares. My inclination would be to find something curvy to soften the squares.

Apparently cases of rickets are becoming more commonplace due to the constant rain over the past few summers... Apart from that, the lack of flowers is getting me down, although everything is green!

I'd go for curvy quilting too, with a varigated thread.