Peppermint Burst Quilt: It's in the Details

Hi there!  I feel like I'm peaking out from underneath a rock to say hello.  I've been working on the quilting for my Peppermint Burst Quilt for two days now and I'm about half way done.  The quilting is rather dense on this quilt so the going is slow.  Now instead of looking at the blocks as a whole, I took a tip from Sew'n Wild Oaks.  I've been looking at each piece of the block and how it comes together to create the sort of movement I want to see in the block.  Doing this is proving to be very midarm quilt frame friendly, as I can do part or all of a single pieced bit of fabric and still maintain a movement throughout the block that conforms to my vision instead of fighting with a pattern that is to big for the frame.  Can you see how I have quilted the segments differently?  Of course you can always click on the image to see it more closely.

Now look again?  Do you see that velum paper you see at the top two corners?  That is my attempt to try a technique my friend Vicki uses on her Felines and Fibre Arts Blog.  I found a coloring book page of a gingerbread house that was just divine and I set about quilting on top of the velum to create the quilted image within the quilt.  You will see more of that after I'm finished if all turns out as I hope.

I am also adding my own theory on this quilt.  It involves the borders and came to me while I was quilting another quilt.  You see when you have a midarm quilt frame like I do, your work space is only as big as that area you see in the above picture.  Yes it's as long as the quilt is wide, but what about the side borders?  When I quilt the top and bottom borders everything is one long continuous line of quilting.  Beautiful, but when I work on the side borders I can only work as wide as the bars and quilt allow.  Which is somewhere between 9" and 5" depending on where I am in the quilt and how big it is.  Think about that, would you like to start quilt and then stop and cut the threads, while quilting a border every 5"?  Not to mention what I've been going through to tuck strings ACK!  So it came to me that what if I quilted the top border, then the body of the quilt, and lastly the bottom border simply skipping the side borders for the time being?  What if I finish the quilting and then turn the quilt, putting it back on the frame only this time rotated 90 degrees?  I can then work on the borders right to left just like when I quilted the top and bottom.  I think this idea will work and work well.  DH tells me it will be easier to load the quilt as a nearly finished piece as there will be much less pinning and very little aligning that needs done.  I hope he's right.

Now before I go back under my quilt rock for the rest of the day, tell me what have you been up to?  Something good I hope.