Making a start.....

Yesterday I got the back of my raw circles quilt basted, with a little help from Charlotte, so last night I made a start trying to work out how to quilt it.  

Firstly, I just hand quilted around the edge of the circles - as the edges don't necessarily meet perfectly however, as you can see on this picture, that didn't really work.  It doesn't stand out either, and if I've gone to all the effort of hand stitching, I at least want people to know I've done it!!! 

So then I thought I'd try a spiral effect, in perle - this was a fuschia colour.  I like how it worked on this block, but then when I did another one with different, lighter fabrics, it looked all wrong and overwhelmed the block.  Not something I ever thought would be a problem with this quilt!  I don't have enough different colours to use a different thread on each block, so that had to stop.

Having sought advice, it was decided spirals were the way to go, so I'm using a variegated normal quilting thread - it's reds, oranges, yellows and pinks and it works really well with the background colours, and gives the quilting effect without over-powering the fabrics.  So far I'm pleased.  I've done 3 blocks now (well, 6 if you count the 3 I un-did) so just 39 more to go.....