Little step by little step

Sometimes when you make things you know exactly how you are going to quilt it, what batting to use, and what the binding is going to be.  Other times you have a general idea... but need to work out the finer details.  Every so often, you work on something that you have no idea what it's going to be, let alone what you are going to do with it.

The Constellation quilt fits into the middle category.  Right from the beginning I was pretty sure I wanted to do something straight-ish in the star blocks, that highlighted the dark ring formed by the half square triangles.  I also wanted to do Angela Waters signature spiral in the background - but wasn't sure how I would manage the quilting since it was over such a large area, and I'd be doing it on my domestic machine.  First up, I practiced the spiral quilting on the Giant Chevron quilt and was feeling more confident in my ability to fit it around shapes.

I decided to add some curvy sections of pebbling - radiating out from the central star (sort of like a shooting star), and fit the spirals in between.  Although when I started this, I still wasn't sure exactly what to do in the stars.

The solution came when I realised I didn't really have the colour thread I wanted to do machine work.  But I did have something suitable to do a bit of chunky hand quilting...

Still in the early stages, but pleasing progress so far.