How to Heirloom quilt this?

[BethDurand]

Sorry if this is a duplicate, but I think I deleted my previous post.  Here's (hopefully) a photo of customer's quilt top.

 

[ffq-lar]

spam reported!

That post wasn't very helpful, was it Beth!

 

The top is very pretty. You might have to do some thread color matching and if I could find a color that worked on several colors I'd use it as much as possible. Realizing that the only places that some intricate quilting will show are the cream colored areas that surround the center and the blue-green border, I'd figure something pretty to quilt there. The odd shape of the cream areas might take some pencil and paper time to find a graceful design. Maybe a double oval with curved crosshatching inside and curls or feathers to fill the rest? Or stitch a butterfly, echo it, and fill behind.

And since she fussy-cut the squares with the butterflies, outlining them and doing a dense filler behind would allow them to shine.

The butterfly print border has an issue that two borders are thinner, so a running design of feathers or leaves might not work. If she wants regularity you could stitch piano keys or beadboard. Or the thinner sides could have running feathers or leaves, and the wider border could continue the design with curling spines if they fit. That will allow the design to be continuous. A thin gold thread would make the quilting more noticeable there unless you want to use a cream. A matching design could be stitched in the inner butterfly fabric surround. CC the triangles and HSTs in the piecing---that will be a lot of stitching.

Change thread colors when you need to but I think gold would work on almost all the fabrics and make the heirloom quilting that she asked for more noticeable.

[Luz2Quilt]

Beth - I think Linda has excellent ideas and second her thoughts.  When I see the quilt as a whole, I see the center as a medallion with doing intricate quilting in the cream that is symmetrical in each quadrant to define the medallion. The fussy cut butterflies could be echoed 1-2 times then a dense fill to make they pop and appear to be fluttering.  Perhaps you might be able to cut down the extensive stitching in the triangles & HSTs by combining several of them together as a group when you do continuous curves.  Please show after pictures!

 

Linda - As a "newbie" for my own personal knowledge, what distinguishes "heirloom" quilting from any other quilting?

[BethDurand]

In response to what makes it "Heirloom" vs. any other quilting, I have 3 price levels.  Edge to edge, any continuous design from one side to the other. Custom, a design in the body of the quilt, with something different in the border, and heirloom. Anything beyond that.