hand quilting vs machine quilting or both!

I've got a finished quilt to share today! 

{yay-e-e-e finish #4, another project to cross off my FAL  list!}

the back

I tossed up for ages about how to quilt this scrappy stacked coins quilt! It's a simple pattern, with a simple (if somewhat 'bright') colour scheme, surely one element, like maybe the quilting, could be a just a bit more dynamic? But I struggle with fmq and I thought I would get bored or give up if I hand quilted it all!

In the end I had it machine quilted by Carol Fearon, however, I asked if she would leave all the pink solid bits unquilted for me to do. I do hand quilting now & then, but I've never tried the big stitch quilting before. I experimented a bit with different threads & needle sizes, looking for which would stitch smoothly & easily. And I finally decided to use a pink variegated embroidery floss with a large eyed needle! Like most things, the more you do the better it is, and I found if I loaded up the needle, my stitches seemed to look that much more even. I'm very happy with the finished combined effect!

On another note, I'm also finding my DS fabrics blend in really well with many others, do you find that too? I used several in the piecing of this quilt, the geometric fabrics are a nice balance with the florals, and her Franklin Glen Geo Calico worked really well for my binding too! This quilt is now finished and on a bed in it's new home.

For more details about my progress & inspiration on this quilt see here.

Linking up with aylin here  for TGIFF.
{finish #5 see my FAL 2015 list here}