Medallion QAL - The Quilting

I'm happy to say I finished my Medallion Quilt Top!!  I love how it turned out!

I finished my last 4 blocks along with putting them all together and the whole time I was doing that I thought about how I was going to quilt it up.  

When I look at this quilt top, three focus areas stand out to me.

One:  The colored Medallions

Two:  The dark gray frames

Three:  The white Medallions with the diamond center

I want to quilt each focus area differently and at the same time accentuate the area.  

Focus area one, the colored Medallions:  When I'm quilting on bold fabrics with lot's of prints and colors, I tend to keep the quilting simpler.  If I tried to do anything fancy, my quilting will not stand out and will be hard to see.  A good way to show off prints like these is repetitive quilting....such as straight lines, either horizontal, vertical or diagonal.  I feel comfortable with that and it gives me an idea as to what I will do in that focus area.

Focus area two, the dark gray frames:  This focus area has given me more to think about.  There are lot's of different ways you can quilt this up.  I really want the quilting to be subtle.  I don't want your eye to be drawn to the frames.  I'm leaning towards simply SID and then echoing the same curve 3 or 4 times.  I might do some fun pearls in a couple of the areas created by the echos.  I'll know once I start quilting it up if that will look good or not.

Focus area three, the white Medallions with the diamond center:  I really wanted to do something fancy for this area, but the more I thought about it the more I thought it probably didn't need anything fancy.  I really want those Medallions to pop and since I love the Medallion shape created with the diamond center from just the design itself then a fun filler may be all that is needed in this focus area.....pebbles,  fun swirls,  a combinations of the two, paisleys, feathers... maybe I will treat each one differently and do a different quilting filler in each one.  For the diamond, again I will stay simple for that and do some repetitive strait lines to accentuate them.

These are a few ideas for those of you that have finished the quilt top and are wanting some ideas on how to quilt it up.  I think as quilters we all take on a style of our own and are inspired by others.  The quilting possibilities are endless!  

There have been many that have finished their Medallion quilts and they have turned out beautiful!  Be sure to check them out on the Medallion QAL Flickr page for some great quilting inspiration!

I would love to do a show-n-tell blog post of all the Medallion quilts finished, quilted or not.....so be sure to post a picture of your quilt on the Flickr page or e-mail me a picture and I can include it.