Quilting a Circle of Friends

 My Mom made a quilt pattern called "Circle of Friends" and ask if I could quilt it for her. There was a lot of open space in the quilt and so I knew that it wanted something special. 

The quilt has a pretty modern vibe to it, but will still a call toward the traditional, so which direction to go?

I asked my Mom if she didn't mind if I went a little 'artsy' on this one and thankfully she agreed!

I opted to do a blend of traditional around the outer edges with a little thread sketching in the middle. 

I saw images of leaves in each of the color blocks which made me think of a tree at the center of it all. 

 

It was hard to get good photos of of the tree, but I changed colors as I sketched/quilted it to correspond with the changing colors of the pieced blocks around the circle. The effect is subtle, but I love how it draws the color into the center sketch. 

And thankfully Mom loved it!