Sometimes a quilt needs extra quilting

These 2 veterans quilts should have been done Sunday evening but I had some thread problems on the second quilt and just walked away from it. yesterday morning I went downstairs, tried again and finished it in 30 minutes with no more thread breaks. 
This is the first quilt I quilted this weekend. Becky made it and, I think, she's made 3 like this!
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A quilt like this is so busy that the quilting would not show so I used teh Macrame pantograph on it.
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Some quilts, however, beg for more quilting. I generally do not do any custom quilting on veterans quilts. My goal is to quilt them fast so that I can quilt as many as possible in a year. But when I saw this quilt from Mary, I felt that it needed a little more than a pantograph. I get one or two quilts a year that inspire me to add a little custom quilting. This is the first one for 2025.
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I only do light custom quilting on these but a little bit of extra can add a lot to the quilt. I'm sensitive to keeping the quilt soft and snugly. I started with some continuous curves and swirls in the star blocks. 

Then I extended the flying geese to create an inner border. I finished with a fern outer border and stippling in the middle. It's hard to see stitching on this marbled fabric. 
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Here's the back. I'm really happy with it.
I'm officially out of veterans quilts for a few hours. I'll pick up more at the meeting tonight.
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This weekend Mom and I are going to Sandbridge Beach with a friend. The weather isn't going to cooperate but we'll have a nice sewing retreat. I need to quickly come up with a project to work on there. I could take a veterans quilt kit but I'm thinking about a new scrap snuggle quilt. Another idea is to take some scraps a make a bunch of new placemat tops to be quilted up later. I have to make a decision today and start packing.