Star and Leaf Quilt - Part 5

I am making progress on the Star and Leaf quilt.  Another star block has been completed and I am half way finished with my first leaf block.  The leaf and veins have been quilted.  The corner pieces have been quilted.  The background of the leaf needs to be quilted.  I had to come up with a plan for the background.  There is too much negative space in the block to leave it bare.  I had to come up with a plan.

Leaf block before quilting.

When I was at my local craft store last week, I saw a stencil that I thought would have been perfect for the block.  It was just a simple series of loops.  I could do that free-hand, but I am trying to make the blocks look like each other.  The contrast between the thread and fabric is high in this area, so I felt that the quilting needed some consistency.  I had not purchased the stencil when I was at the craft store because I wanted to come back to the house and make some measurements and make sure it would fit before I purchased the stencil.  There are plenty of stencils out there, the problem is finding one that is the right size.

   Once home, I determined that the stencil would work, and a few days later made a trip up to the craft store.  Wouldn't you know it, between one trip and the next, they had reset the stencil area.  The stencil I wanted was gone.  The clerk was helpful and checked the back room, but all the old stencils had been sent to wherever the store sends its merchandise that does not sell.  Sigh.

I had to make a new plan.  I decided that I would make a stencil of some maple leaves and a spiral.  I will trace the stencils one at a time onto the fabric with disappearing ink.  Then I will quilt over the stencil lines. I worked out a pattern that I think will be acceptable.  I already had a stencil burner tip for my wood burning tool and I had some stencil making material also.  I drew a spiral and a leaf, traced them onto my stencil material, and started cutting them out.  I did the leaf twice.  The first one was a bit of a learning curve.  It came out a little rough, and I had cut to the edge of the stencil when cutting out the leaf, which made it hard to keep in place.  The open edge allowed one side to shift about.  I then thought that it might have be easier to trace around the inside of the stencil rather than trace around the leaf.  I made a second leaf, this time with a closed template.  This one came out a little smoother. 

I think that by interspersing leaves and spirals around the large leaves will make for some interesting quilting.   My other option was to stipple quilt.  I am trying to avoid that because there will be so much of it.  Hand quilting takes a long time.  Stipple quilting would take a lot longer.  I guess I will see how things go with my new plan.  Worst comes to worst, I will pull the stuff out and start stippling.