Thinking about Quilting

I did a quick sketch of the quilting I think I want to do on the Oceans Quilt -- a very quick and ugly little sketch, but it gives you an idea where I think I'm headed.

My thought is to more of less 'outline' the pieces of the central star, a line on both insides of the grey border, and a set of wave-like free-motion-ish (because of course, my feed dogs still don't drop properly) lines through the outer borders. This leaves the little border of half-square-triangles without any quilting. The batting suggests this is an acceptable amount to leave without quilting, but I wonder if the HSTs will be stronger and safer if there's a little more quilting over the top of them.

My major issue is still the large grey fields in the center, both around the outside and the pinwheel. I need to put something inside them, but what will work? I sketch tested a few different options, mostly various straight lines building off the patterns already existing -- copying off the lines near by or in-lining the pinwheel triangle. Nothing felt right.

I've debated trying to freehand some stars in the four outside open spaces, similar to what I did on the Christmas Quilt -- but prettier, I hope! That said... I'm not confident in my ability to make those turn out as 'perfect' as I'd like. I run into the same problem with adding other shapes to these open spaces... Hmm...

Searching the internet for ideas is a lot of fun --

Something like this incredible quilting (found through Pinterest, but link goes to the post at QuiltingBoard.com, a site I've never seen before but will be checking out in detail tonight when I give up on this project for a few hours) would be ideal -- but well beyond my limited abilities, and my limited time schedule.

-- but not much help.

All the 'fillers' I can find require real free motion abilities. And while I do dream of having that ability, I haven't got the time or money to invest in a new machine, and so far no one has been able to fix mine to make it work as it should. So, back to the sketching board I guess... I'd like to start on this asap, so hopefully inspiration will strike soon!