Variety in Quilting Stitches

I've noticed that some quilt artists use a lot of straight lines or echo quilting in the background. I love the way that looks. It is restful and focuses attention on the subject. I wish I could do that more. For better or worse, I like to use a variety of quilting stitches in my background areas on my art quilts. This is partly because I get bored doing the same stitch over and over again, but also because for me it's more interesting to look at. 

For the Circle of Life piece, I took advantage of the print on the background and stitched around the squares in the checkerboard area. I really liked the way that looked when it was done. It made them pop out, especially the orange colored squares. In other areas I did echo quilting, wavy lines, curlicues, circles, and whatever came to my mind. On the tree trunk I put some leaf shapes. Here are some photos of the quilting:

checkerboard 

circles and curlicues

echo in diamond areas

horizontal lines in sun

foliage and tree trunk area

The quilting spacing was fairly close, which I am liking more and more these day.   Thanks for visiting my blog!