Going With The Flow!

Quilting the background air is always a challenge. In Fall in our narrow canyon, air flows quickly down the canyon. It's graceful but nonetheless powerful. So I will quilt accordingly... or at least try. This piece will not be as heavily quilted as some of my competitive pieces so most of the original ink painting will remain visible.

First things first..... In each quilt, prior to starting with any new thread choice, I use the excess ( i.e. that extra border fabric not to be included in the fiinished quilt) to test thread tension. I used to do that on a separate quilt sandwich, but heck.... longarmers test in the outer edges so this made sense to me.
The background has bits of light or early snow if you choose to interpret it that way..... so first things first, I secured them jumping from one to another making certain to secure with small start / stop stitches as I went. Close clipping will trim nicely so this should work out alright.

Now to quilt air flow..... it's much like quilting flowing water but for the lack of sometimes water bubbles. There are a couple things to think about when doing this... lines must move and curve, adjacent lines can somewhat echo the previous BUT
exagerate the echo sometimes sweeping further out from previous curve, and sometimes coming closer to the previous echo. Ah nature,,,, it is here without regiment. That's good, AND it makes it a bit more interesting too. I haven't yet decided if I really like my thread choice.
Getting there.