How to Quilt it?

I finished reading my book for the evening (a Sharon Sala young adult offering was what I was copyediting,and very good it was too, I didn't want the story to end.) Then I decided to do some quilting.

So I pulled out my block of the month wallhanging that I did with the twelve stars from 2011. Added a one inch border to the edges, with four little pastel corner squares. Cut me some white for backing, a square of bamboo/cotton batting, and got it all sandwiched and pinned together. Then I froze:

How on earth should I quilt the thing? It's only 26 inches square, so I'll do it myself on my domestic machine instead of sending it out; but I'm petrified to set needle to cloth! I could put the walking foot on and quilt in the ditch easy enough, but somehow I don't think this one is calling for straight lines. Help! What's easy enough that a beginning machine quilter could tackle it without messing it up? Suggestions?

Inside Medallion

I was trying to tie it all together for a spring theme, and I think that'll do. ;)


I did the grass and stems using liberated quilting, Tonya Style, just like the letters and wonky houses I've made using her technique. I sewed green triangles to white triangles, then cut the resulting rectangles into wonky wedges. Then I sewed those wedges together, trying not to put any two blades of similar height grass close to each other, and alternating pale green with medium green. I trimmed the bottom and top flat and parallel, then machine appliqued the pinwheels onto the stems.

I ended up removing some of the background fabric on the pinwheels because the bottom fabric was white, and made the pinwheels look as if they were floating above the stems, not the effect I wanted. I also wanted them far enough away from the star blocks where they didn't touch.

This is currently 24 x 24, a nice small size for a wall hanging. Should I border it or leave it borderless? I have enough of the white background left where I could put a 1 inch white border on, then maybe bind it in scrappy strips?