My UFO is finished!! but it needs a name :-)

So, I have been busy the last two weeks, and part of that has been quilting.  Yes, the piece I started in October 2008 is finally done.  But I am not lamenting....  Nope...  There is no way, I could have done what I done with this piece back in 2008.  I just wasn't up to the task.

Well here it is....

Yes, I am pretty proud of myself.  I love the colors, the applique, the trapunto, the quilting....  yeah, just about everything about this piece, I like.

It all started at retreat in Oct 2008, when I picked out the fabrics and decided to do a 'medallion' quilt.  While I layed out the background, I had a hard time deciding on what the appliques would look like.  So home it came and over the next 2 months, my DH and I played with different applique shapes.  In the end, I modified one of Ricky Tim's applique shapes from his Rhapsody patterns and came up with two different shapes that I liked and fit the areas just right.  The center applique is totally original and was done via the old paper doll method....  folding a piece of paper in quarters, drawing a design on one of the quadrants and then un-folding it to see what you get.  I played with 3 or 4, until I came up with this.

But it became a UFO, because once I got the appliques on, I couldn't decide how to quilt it.  Then all of a sudden trapunto came to my mind and I pulled it back out.  I figured trapunto would be a great way to fill in some of the wide open spaces.

With the trapunto done, I knew that I needed fairly close quilting to make the trapunto stand out.  So I played with a few different designs and agreed this piece needed different designs in the different sections.  So you can see I used basic meandering in the center.  Then added my circle in a circle pattern in the next section.  In the salmon section around the applique I used a leave on leave pattern.  I think I like this design because it really adapted itself to going around the shapes and around the gold medallion.

Then I ended with a pattern I learned from Mary Anne Ciccotelli, even though I don't know what it is called.  Nice thing about this design, is it can be used as a fairly tight quilting motif, or a big loose motif on a bed or lap quilt.  Very versatile it is :-).

Anyway, you see next I decided to add piping, versus just facing this wall hanging like I have been doing so much of lately.  I just thought it was more suitable to the piece.  A more traditional style deserved a more traditional ending.

This piece is quilted totally with Aurifil Cotton 50 weight thread.  I am liking Aurifil more and more lately.  It did such a wonderful job on this piece!

Now the problem is, it hasn't spoken to me yet, so I don't have a name for it yet.  Will have to let it hang in the studio for awhile, until it tells me what it wants to be called.  That is, unless you have a good suggestion?

Cheers.......  Renee