Drat, Drat and Double Drat!!!

Yesterday I was sharing about putting the backing together for my Irish Chain quilt.  Today, after it was hanging out on the clothesline overnight, the wrinkles were still there.  I touched the fabric to make sure it was dry.  It felt like a high-quality chintz fabric, complete with the sound of high quality cotton, but I decided I  wanted to be sure.  I am thinking about hand quilting the Irish Chain quilt and I want to make sure I'm not fighting polyester fibres.  So I conducted the famous 'burn' test.  If you google it you will find articles about the different ways fibres behave when a flame hits them.

Well, the long and short of it is that one of my fabrics was 100% cotton and the two side panels (which I used to make the quilt backing wide enough...you know...a pieced back) is Poly/Cotton.  It melted!  Can't bring myself to use it.  So back to the drawing board.

Thankfully I was able to find something nice and soft at Fabricland for 55% off so now I have ample fabric for the back of this quilt.  Now I just need some energy to baste it together so that it can be quilted.  I'm still not sure if I'll machine quilt it or hand quilt it.  I already have one quilt underway in the hoop and I'm a long way off having it done.

Decisions, decisions.

What do you think?  Here's the picture of the quilt again:

I'd love to do some quilting in the blank squares.  I bought a circular wreath stencil today.  It would be perfect in those blank spots.  But whether or not I should do it by hand or machine is the question.  I'm a bit of a puritan.  I'd like to do either 100% hand or 100% machine ~ not both in the same quilt.

So...what do you think my quilty friends?  Hand or machine?  What does quilt beg for?

Until next time,

Mavis