Medaillon quilt - long standing UFO

So I had this quilt top in my cupboard for .... 10 years and it has been waiting to be quilted for that long, I am ashamed to say.... I made the central snowflake from a pattern by Paula Nadelstern 

I can't remember if I paper pieced it or use template, I think it was the latter but I remember I had trouble having it flat...

I send it for a Round Robin to all my partners and after 6 rounds it came back like this

And then seeing the lovely work and the huge size of it (it is about 75' square), I got scared of quilting it so I put it away for later. Later never arrived until at the end of last year I thought it would be so good to tackle it.
And it has been a learning experience.... I have changed threads during the quilting (which I have not done before)

I have quilted the quilt on the frame "by row" and then turned it 90 degrees to finish it off... there are a few puckers on the back but I can live with those.

And I have practiced lots of motifs like flowers and feathers etc. They are not perfect of course but I am glad I tried.

I have used black batting for the first time since the top is mostly dark and the back is black.

And I used a lovely dark batik for the binding.

One less UFO and one more OPAM for January, and one of my Q1 FAL list as well as my APQ UFO challenge item.

Quilt stats:
Top pieced in 2006
Quilted in 2017
Quilted with Aurifil 5014 and Superior Threads King Tut 902, 903, 918 and 938
Size: 75' square

Linking to Sew Cute Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, Needle and Thread Thursday, Whoop Whoop Friday.

Celine