Nine-Patch Quilting--What Shall I Do?

County Fair time is nearly here and I've been thinking about what I'd like to enter this year.  Deadlines being a good thing for me, I mentally ran through some unfinished quilts and decided starting on the one furthest along in being quilted was a wise place to start.

This poor project I'm calling Caramel Blues has been stuck at about halfway quilted for quite some time.  The CW print nine-patches came from a swap of nearly three years ago by Julie K and the pattern is Carefree Romance from AP&Q magazine.  Simple hourglass blocks make this a much more complicated looking quilt than it was to construct. The caramel and cream prints came from Temecula Quilt Company.  I think the caramel is a Jo Morton print.

I used a walking foot to stitch pumpkin seeds diagonally across each block's center and corner squares with variegated thread, and then cross-hatched the remaining squares.  But then I became stuck on what to do in the surrounding triangles formed by the hourglass blocks.  I want the nine patches to stand out and not be over powered so my original idea of using the same variegated thread in the cream triangles was ripped out--it was far too distracting and kind of looked dirty on the cream.  I did manage to purchase some matching thread some months ago but that was as far as I got. 

Out came the sketchbook.  I sometimes come up with great ideas while not really thinking too hard, just doodling and playing.

 I didn't want to repeat the pumpkin seed but did want some more curves to play off the patchwork. 

 Hmm, this is coming along. 

 A full size mock up of the triangle.  These are 6" finished blocks so not a lot of area to fill. 

Today I wandered over to my LQS and picked up some General Pastel marking pencils and scored a cool tool pencil sharpener for 15% off since it was the tester and the last one.  Now for the ITIS part of the quilting process: I'll Try It & See.  Future post to come featuring success or failure...cross your fingers for the former!