Dividing and quilting

And on it goes! I've ended up taking a lot longer over quilting this than planned, but I think the quilt deserves it. The first photo below shows some of the quilting I'm doing between the outer Swoon blocks - dividing the large spaces to a) make them more manageable, b) allow more variety in the quilting and c) make the quilting design more formal and dramatic.

I mark the lines, but theyr'e free-motion quilted. Then I freehand fill the gap beween the lines with a large filigree design. Then I echo the edges of the feathers and fill the gap with McTavishing, and then quilt in the ditch around the next Swoon star. I'd hoped to avoid the ditch quilting, but it's really necssary, and makes a huge improvement. But it all takes time. I've done six of the eight.

Interspersed with this, I'm doing some of the quilting around the centre block. This is similar to what I'm doing around the edges (filigree in the centre) - but with feathers added. I use rulers positioned using certain intersections of the swoon block to mark the lines, and I'm marking the feathers to keep them even - using the rulers as a guide to position. The blue and green block is the quilt centre, and the lines radiate from the centre of it.

Today I drew up a new quilt design, which I'm desperate to whip-up, then wasted ages hunting for my previously unused 60-degree ruler. I eventually found a different (also unused) triangle ruler, and now wonder if I ever had a 60-degree one! I might go and get one tomorrow... This quilt will feature largeish pieces from a single range (when I can choose one; I have several options!) and a single coordinating solid. Quite unusual for me.