I have been thinking about the quilting since august. Now that I have the top done I too am consulting design books and chatting with my expert Mom on my ideas.

First I plan to stitch in ditch with monopoly around the main design elements. I doubt I will get as intricate as the sample but will use some echo, some bubbles, some arches, some feathers and a shooting star concept.

I will do it on my home machine (really my Mom's) one section at a time so it is broken up into manageable chunks.

My expert Mom plans to stimulate the economy and outsource to her favorite professional quilter.

Muriel, check out this free software called "Snip It". If you Google "Snip It" you will get lots of info and I see that it is now available for both PC and Macs! It's a really cool tool that I use all the time!

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Use-Snipping-Tool-to-capture-screen-shots

I agree the quilting of this beautiful quilt is very daunting. I am very impressed with the quilting shown in the newsletter =. Zoomed in it is so amazing. Is there any way that the zoomed images can be saved to ones own computer. It is probably entirely wrong to copy someone elses work, but it would be such an inspiration to get ideas from being able to study it

Nigella, that is a brilliant idea lol, i might just do the same, thanks for the tip syd 60

I finished my top after the 11th month and have not started the quilting process as yet. Sometimes it takes me a month or two to wrap my head around the task. When I think I'm ready, I put my piece on the design wall (prior to creating the sandwich) and study the quilt, get out all of my quilting books, dvds to get some inspiration. I also have quite a few photos that I've taken at quilt shows to try and get the creative juices going. I do some sketching of areas that I think need something unique and make some doodles on scrap paper. I absolutely love the quilting process, however, getting there takes me sometime. My advice would be to not get intimidated by the project, remember "you can only eat an elephant one bite at a time". I hope this has given you more confidence to see this process through. There are a lot of dvd's, books, "youtube" is another great source. You can do it, I know you can. Good luck and look forward to seeing your quilt (as well as mine) completed in a few months.

Hi Nigella, congratulations on finishing such a complicated quilt - I didn't even attempt it. In the classroom Patsy Thompson's videos might be of help. And on craftsy.com Cindy Needham's class 'Design it, Quilt it' is a very good series of lessons in how to approach quilting a quilt. If you have seen them already then apologies. And a Happy Christmas to you too.

I don't know about every body else, but I am not a confident quilter. I have persevered and finished my Sedona Star quilt (ta da! and thank you Sarah xx) but the task ahead of quilting such a monster is filling me with absolute trepidation....I would love for the BOM to have some guidance for we novices or non-confident home quilters.
For now I have decided to follow the months from this year and quilt those parts that we pieced in the corresponding months. That way I am hoping it won't seem quite so daunting and I have an entire year to quilt it without feeling I am under-acheiving.
Good luck to everyone else and Merry Christmas xx