Quilting a Roundabout

Well... this was certainly a time consuming challenge. First, the finished product ( sounds backward for a story yet to be told).

The center of the quilt started the process in Jan 2012 where I free motion embroidered Santa in the center and sashed him some solid red and white plus an interesting baltic-like red and white print. I placed the center piece in a basket with multiple "retayned" reds and whites and began a month by month basket pass amongst quilting buddies ( We all  take turns with each others projects) .  Each added whatever they wanted as the bed sized quilt top grew. The first 'round' of addition embroidered different names of Father Christmas in different languages/countries. Way fun!!  Once it returned to me at years end...I added a final print border and then the challenge of how to quilt presented itself. I quickly decided the quilting (but for maybe around Santa himself) was less important than the quilt tops design, so I chose to use the quilt top as terrain for a quilting motif sampler of sorts.  I'll try a bunch of different things.  Why not???   I'm working on my long arm which is largely unfamiliar territory so let's play. I gave myself permission NOT to try to create a masterpiece.   Good plan!!

Around Santa.... I used exagerated swirling motifs of different sizes, and a bit of Mucha-like lines immediately around his body. (Click on photos for enlarged images.)

I added various other leaves, trees, berry shapes in other sashings.... nothing exciting.  I admit I rather enjoyed this loose half-feather look in the outer sashing on each side.  Pretty fast to do too.

Nothing is ever really done 'til the label goes on. I love the busy back fabric on this piece...  Just 3 weeks back, I found it on a bargain table in a little shop in Solvang, Ca.   Little Denmark U. S. A. had just what I needed to get me moving to the finish line.