Pinwheel Sampler Quilt Along: block seven.

After so much tweaking on blocks two and four, I'm finally back to making progress on my pinwheel sampler. Here is my block seven and I have to say that I absolutely love this block design.

And here is my second color-way:

Instructions for this block are available at p.s. i quilt: pinwheel sampler quilt along: block seven. Pop on over and check out Rachel's fabulous blocks -- I love the red in her combinations for these. I'm a little bit behind. Block eight was posted weekend before last. Rachel gave block suggestions and said to make this quilt our own. I have my block picked out, but have not made the final selection on fabrics yet. The finishing instructions were posted day-before-yesterday.

Along with the finishing instrucions, Rachel challenged everyone to assemble their tops, quilt and bind and meet back in two weeks with finished quilts. I'm not sure I can manage that, but it is a really exciting prospect. I joined the quilt-along with the specific goal of doing the machine quilting myself after I'd finished the piecing. This will be my first quilt doing the machine quilting on my own (though I have dabbled with machine quilting a little on smaller projects).

My first thought for quilting this was to use my walking foot and do echo stitching ¼” on either side of the seams, highlighting the pinwheels. I'm not practiced enough to do any sort of fancy free-motion quilting (I have an inexpensive panel I bought to practice that on). I don't want to to an all-over stippling (which I'm not very good at yet) or swirls and loops (which I'm better at), because I want the pinwheels to really stand out. If I use the walking foot, I'll have an accurate guide for keeping the stitching a consistent width away from the seams. But it also means a lot of tying off because I won't be able to rotate the quilt much when it is in the machine. Using the free-motion foot would be a lot easier. I suppose I could mark the quilt before I start. There's a thought. Any suggestions from the seasoned machine quilting pros?