Quilters-I'm trying to think ahead this time. I am also making several quilts between my g-babies. The one I am working on now is an angel quilt. I have found several filled angels that I am going to use along with the bible verses that Cuties helped me with. I will have plenty of blocks so will only use a small strip of color fabric to separate the blocks. I have found a couple of redwork designs that I would like to use as the quilting part. My questions are 1. I the RW ok to use? 2. Since the design is about the same size as my designs, can they overlap into the blocks - what I mean is the design will be on the edge of one block - across the strip - and into the next block. 3. Since my blocks are white - I know my top thread should be white. But if the bottom material is light blue - do I have a white or light blue bottom thread? 4. Anything else I need to think about? Thanks for your help. The quilts will be much nicer with all your help.

I do a lot of machine quilting with redwork designs...I usually embroider my filled designs in the center of the blocks...then I sew my squares together to make the entire quilt top including the borders...then I sandwich and back the quilt...then I pin the quilt...then I run my in-the-ditch around the blocks and borders removing the pins...this basically holds the quilt together...then I go back and do my redwork designs...sometimes just a border type redwork design around my filled design...and if the block is blank...I do the redwork design in the blank square...this way all of the redwork will be quilted through...I also machine quilt my borders this way. If you are going to do the Bible verses, I would embroider them and go back and put a redwork frame around them after you have the quilt made as I described...then the frame border will be quilted through to the back...I hope this makes sense...let me know if you have any questions...I love doing this as I am trying to blend machine embroidery with my quilting. I also will free motion quilt around the filled machine embroidery design...this way the outline of the filled design is quilted through to the back...Sometimes I match the color of the back fabric with that color thread in the bobbin and use another color for the needle thread. If you do this, you may need to adjust the tension to balance out so the top thread does not show on the back of the quilt...

Of course you can use redwork. I might not use the ones that use the bean stitch(heavier). I have used rw a lot. Designsinstitches-Kaz has a nice selection to use. Top of the home page has a tab for the free designs index and there you will find a good bunch of choices. Can't think off the top of my head right now for more. Sites are on my home computer. I will try to remember to put some of those up later on. Though most quilts I just stipple all over. Click on my name and eventually some of my quilt pictures will come up.
I have always used the same thread, top and bottom , Never know when the bobbin thread might want to show through. That would be traditional, anyway. (Which is about how traditional I get.LOL). I use a larger needle-a 14.
JO