Deciding what to quilt on the Crown Royal quilt

vaguely following the chalk lines

sketching it out in chalk

I finally finished the piecing of the Crown Royal quilt and got it on the frame.  With customer quilts waiting, I didn't want to spend too much time trying to decide what to quilt. 

My dilemma was keeping the quilting pattern fairly open.

I thought that a stem coming from the corner would look odd, so I changed it to a curly-Q

This quilt is totally flannel fabric and I wanted to keep a soft feel to it.  Sometimes it is a challenge for me to keep my quilting open.  I get used to intense quilting on some of the customer quilts, but who wants a stiff flannel quilt?  When I think flannel, I think soft and fluffy!

Another open space to decide on.
 
I finally chose to go with more feathers and swirls to repeat the design in the borders.  I ditched all around the center and the outer borders.

I wasn't too thrilled with the way it was looking as I progressed across the quilt.  Once it was all quilted and off the frame I decided it looked alright.

My only rules were to avoid the "Crown Royal"  letters and try to keep my spacing uniform.  Sometimes being repetitive can be such a blessing!  (at least in my long-arm world)

This took 3 days to quilt because I still have swelling and a dull ache in my ankle when I stand on it for long periods of time.  Soft tissue damage can certainly take a long time to heal.

I wonder if the one that I am making this quilt for would have given me a couple of what goes into the bag.... would the quilt have turned out different?  Would I have been calmer...
or just hungover.

I left these little corner squares for last and finally decided once again to repeat those swirls and feathers.  All I had to do was to chalk out a circle and put a swirl in the center, then follow the circle around with feathers. 

The top and bottom borders have a very simple pattern forming an X.

My helper was napping.  I didn't want to wake him and so it's not a very good picture of the whole quilt.

I like the back as well as the front.  Now I just need to get my binding on and it is FINISHED!  That is one of my favorite words.

I told myself (and Anita) that I was going to try to finish a UFO every month this year.  I still have good intentions of completing that goal and this will be the project  for January.  That means I have 9 days to get a binding on this quilt and finish one more before March arrives.

I linked this post to Judy Laquidara's design wall, Link a Finish Friday, Off the wall Friday, and also linked to Freemotion by the River's Linky Tuesday.
Be sure to go see the beautiful projects that others are working on!