Another Finished Top

In my last post I showed the start of "Safari Stars":

When I originally worked on this design back in 2007, I had scanned all my fabrics into Quilt-Pro and it had been designed to be finished with an outer border of the fabric on the left and a solid black inner border.  But I always felt that the design still "needed something".

Then I pulled out the fabric on the right and it immediately resonated with me.  I had used this fabric as the color inspiration for another project many years ago and made a prairie point border with it (see the "Focus Fabric Feathered Star" in this post).  I felt like the new fabric pulled out the center purple and rust stars better and the whole top melded together.  I also now felt that the inner border needed to be a print and went through my stash until I found the black and white fabric on the table.   But I still felt the corners needed work.  So I pulled out another fabric purchased at the New Jersey Quilt Fest show in 2009 (which you can see a peek of in the lower left corner of the picture above):

I liked this new addition and with it, the right side fabric definitely won out for the final design.  So yesterday I added the additions, appliqueing them on with a wavy edge, an idea I got from the borders displayed on the last quilt pictured in this blog post by Liz about her new Australian Modern Quilt Guild.  Here is the design after the center blocks were all sewn together and I did a final audition of the borders:

And today I have a finished top:

I already have backing fabrics and am trying to now decide on how to quilt it.  I am thinking of adding prominently stitched "Andinkra Symbols" in some of the open blocks instead of doing the embellishments I had considered before.  With one more flimise on the "to be quilted" pile, I think I've reached my tipping point and will be forced to face my fears and rev up my free motion foot!