Quilting decision made
I've spent a few days doing trials of quilting, both machine and hand stitching, on both felt and 80/20 cotton/poly backing. Thanks much to Beth Berman, who reminded me about the possibility of felt, which I had ruled out because I thought I would end up with hand stitching. (I've used felt once before, where I was machine quilting and wanted it to be as flat as possible.) Beth reassured me that felt was easily workable for hand quilting as well. For the trials, I stitched in the ditch, in the horizontal seams that go across the width of the quilt. These rows are 10" apart. Then I quilted vertical lines where blocks were seamed together. These are usually diagonal seams, and vary from about 4" to 12" apart. I'm a little wary about quilting this far apart (should usually be no more than 4-5" apart), but since I won't be using/washing this quilt (it will be a wall-hanging), this should be OK. The felt definitely kept a very flat look, more so than...