Straight Line Quilting

From the amount of email I received after this post, I'd say I hit a nerve with quilters who are frustrated with free motion quilting.  I felt encouraged to continue on and quilt this piece entirely with the foot on and the feed dogs engaged.

To this end, I consulted Linda H of Stitch Lines, who teaches machine quilting. She agreed that there are many who just want to quilt with a  foot, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that. We tossed around a couple of ideas to use on this piece.  Thank you Linda for your valued input.
The cross-hatched 1" grid on the circles came out looking pretty spiffy, if I may say so, but the bare spot in the centre was needing something more.

 I found a can lid the right size and traced a circle.

 I added the grid lines as in the other circles, and then echo quilted the remaining end sections using the edge of my walking foot as a guide.  Serendipitously, the foot was the perfect width to have the lines of stitching meet exactly in the centre.  (errr...I mean,  I planned it that way!)

For the spaces between the spikes I removed the walking foot and simply used my regular 1/4" foot.  This was the part I had groaned about to Linda, as I felt it would take forever to stitch it this way compared to stippling.  However, because it was on the outer edge of the centrepiece, it was very easy to turn the quilt on the machine bed and it took no time at all to stitch.

 I did a double row to outline the spikes, and it really makes them stand out.

 Here's how it looks finished.  The quilting shows so nicely as I've used one of my new Legacy wool batts.

On the back is a plain, soft yellow solid cotton. 

This piece is ready now for my May 4th workshop;  at that time I will add the binding.

If you've been stumped as to how to quilt your Maritime Beauty, perhaps you will find some inspiration here.