FMQ and the Puzzle Box Quilt

I'm so excited! I finished machine quilting the 36 blocks of the Puzzle Box Quilt. I still have the borders to quilt but feel great that I've come this far! I tried to do a little bit at a time. I found if I tried to quilt too many blocks at once that I would get sloppy. My quilting is not perfect by any means. Some of the lines are not exactly straight and some of my loops are a little pointy rather than round but I feel I learned so much. I'm much better at using rulers to guide my way. (Although I did end up bending a needle by sewing over the ruler at one point!) I really just wanted to add texture in a somewhat nice design that would suit the quilt. I like the end results so far!

The top picture gives you a close up of the blocks while the second picture is further away. I love that the texture is visible even from a distance. This quilt seemed so flat to me. I felt it needed something to add some character.

Here's a view of the backing after being quilted. I love that you can see the shadow of the block and it's quilting! I had to do some back tracking when travelling between blocks. Do you just leave all those layers of thread there or try to remove them? I was going to remove them but they're not as prominent as I thought they would be.

Now it's time to come up with some ideas for the border. I was thinking of free motion quilting a paisley or sea shell design. I have some variegated black thread as well as a variegated bright multicolor thread. I'm going to have to experiment and see what I like better. I bought the binding fabric last weekend. It's a multicolored stripe that alternates with black. It will make a great binding especially if cut on the bias!

So many ideas! So much to do but also a lot of fun!