Client Quilt - Pickled Beets

This fun client quilt is modern and Christmassy!  The pattern is Latifah Saafir's, one of the pioneers of the Modern Quilting movement.
The design is a modern take on the traditional "pickled beets" quilt.  I love that grunge making up the arcs and background - a very luscious beety colour!
For the quilting, I echoed the triangle shapes in the background triangles, and quilted almost freehand arcs in the wide bands.  I don't have a ruler that has anything like this arc, so I used a straight ruler and followed the shape.  The triangle shape got stylized trees, wishbone, ribbon candy or crosshatch quilting.

I used similar designs from Latifah's original quilt ...
You can see this quilt soon hanging up at Stache Fabrics & Notions, and she has the pattern available too!

With all the bias and arcs in this quilt, it was really challenging to not end up with "friendly" spots.  The worst part was the very bottom arc.  I sprayed my trusty starch, which really helps tame that fullness. 

Here's the "after" ... It's actually pretty straight - the bowing is from how it was draped and the extra backing on the floor was not exactly straight.
Batting is Hobbs 80/20 natural.
The backing is a gorgeous textured teal.  
I used a light grey thread for the bobbin.  I was very happy that with the contrast top and bottom threads, there were no 'pokies' - colour peeking out from one side or the other where you can see the contrasting thread.
For the top thread - on the red grunge, I used Hab 'n Dash Glide "Hokies".
On the focus triangles, Hab 'n Dash Glide Tidewater was a terrific match.
My Bernina Q24 stitch count for this on is just shy of 70,000 stitches.