Maru, with and without quilting

Quilting makes a difference to the overall appearance of patchwork. I machine quilted 'Maru' starting with the inner circle and echo quilted working outwards at 5/8in intervals, using the walking foot, in a dark blue thread.  This meant I only needed to mark the first circle.  The radiating lines inside this circle were marked with strips of masking tape and quilted with a shaded thread - cream through to orange.  The block is the 'Japanese Circles and Squares' workshop, with the blues random and the central circle all from the same fabric (or nearly all!)

 

 

Here's the same areas before quilting -