Quilting in the Melon Patch

I got an email from my friend Andrea from the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild last week asking if I could fit in a rush order for her friend Savannah.  I've got plenty on my to-do list, but the real deadlines are a ways out, so I said yes.  Isn't this melon patch quilt so cute?

I had a couple of challenges deciding how to quilt this one.  She wanted something to kind of follow the pattern of the quilt, and she didn't want it really dense.  Once I had it loaded on my frame I sat down with my consultant (aka Mr. Mills) and my handy-dandy white board and we started drawing.  My main problem with this one is that the blocks were 8 inches wide, but my quilting space is only about 6 inches.  The designs I kept coming up with all went across the entire block and I would have had to roll the quilt back and forth MULTIPLE times on each row.  Wow, I really can't wait until I get a real longarm.

My husband came up with this design, and I loved it.  We both decided that the little flowers in the middle of the diamond shapes wasn't necessary, so I skipped that part.

I stitched in the ditch between the diamonds and the petals so I didn't have to start and stop, so the pattern went really fast.  I was able to get the entire thing quilted on Saturday, despite having two different extended family activities that day!

I failed to take any other pictures of this one.  Oops.  Savannah came and picked it up yesterday, which hopefully gave her plenty of time to do the binding before her daughter's birthday party tonight.  She loved it, and I did too.  I will probably do this or a similar pattern again if I get more melon patch quilts in the future.  Thanks, consultant for your great idea!