A modern quilt for my bed

You know that saying -  the cobblers children have no shoes?   I'm the quilter who has no quilts.  I give them all away or work on others' quilts. Until now.  I finally made a quilt for my own bed.  A king sized quilt.  

  It is SO BIG!  

 I wanted something neutral,  simple and calm.   I chose a variety of neutral fabrics in taupes, and greys.  

 I chose someone else's pattern this time -  from Carolina Patchworks -  Sweet Garden  (Emily Cier) .   

I am not a happy pattern follower, and was grumbling a lot, but this pattern just seemed to suit what I wanted to do - and why reinvent the wheel?    But of course I had to add new treads to the wheel. LOL    I initially set out to adjust the pattern to be entirely a king.  Pieced it all together, laid it out on my bed and my heart sank - it was just too busy.  Too quilty.   Too much patchwork for the mood I wanted in my room.  

So I  *GASP*  hacked it up so it was a smaller bit of patchwork and added some calm, white fabric to the top and bottom.    And then I quilted it - and got a little carried away.   

I started with simple waving lines....

started to add swirls -  I just marked the 'c' shape of where I wanted the big swirl placements.  Then I started to fill in the shapes with fillers to show movement and flow.

This is how the top '1/3' of the quilt looks:

For the patchwork, I just did simple ribbon candy in the sashing. This gave the texture and allowed the squares to pop like little pillows.    For the squares or rectangles larger than 4'' I quilted a line or two in the space to keep the batting and fabric stable.  This is where I feel like a rule breaker.   I know it should be consistent amount of quilting throughout.   This is where I rebel and feel like I can't follow along.  I WANT this added interest.    

I mean, look at how the little pillows pop!  This is my bed anyways....I will report and edit this post in the future if I find out it is a useless experiment.   But I don't care.  I love this look.

 This was very free flowing quilting - all improvisation with me just knowing that I wanted it to look swirly, flowing and show moment -  an ode to the beach, waters, etc.     

My quilt has yet to be bound.   It is still 'commando' without a binding.  I will keep it plain white to keep the focus on the quilting and the colour palette.   

 I hope you like it!  It's pretty breath taking on my bed.   Now I'm too scared to use it.   I am so super thrilled with how it turned out.   

Pattern - Carolina Patchworks  Sweet Garden by Emily Cier

Fabrics -  assorted prints - too many !   Kona cotton in Snow

Thread -  Glide thread in White,  Wonderfil Decobob bobbin thread white

Battings - Hobbs heirloom 100% wool batting.  

Hand guided quilting on my APQS machine.