Trial and Error

I am now quilting the grass, while delaying my decision about what to do about the little deer.

My initial thoughts on quilting the grass was to use three shades of green; light yellow green for the lower half, a leafy green for the mid section and darker green for the darkest part of the grass along the top edge and quilting between the painted blades, but then, I was not sure exactly how to do it.

I started with the leaf green and quilted around each paint stroke defining it like a blade of grass. I did not like the way it looked at all. It seemed messy and the green thread looked too dark. So I changed threads to the lighter green and started working in another area making my lines continuous from one plant to the next, carefully stitching along the previously quilted outlines of the plants to get to the next blade.

I am happy with how this looks, I have also decided to only use the two lighter greens and skip the dark one. Now I have lots of thread snipping to do from the first grass quilting attempt.

I am really torn about quilting the little deer. I am thinking about either stuffing it a little bit with trapunto and not quilting it, so it really contrasts with its surroundings or quilt it with some big flower power style floral motifs. I have been debating this point since I began the quilting and was hoping I would come to a decision by the time I have to do it. I guess I have 24 hours or less left.

I think I may need to go back and do a little more quilting in the scroll designs in the sky, I would like to leave them fairly simple, but I don't want them to look buckled or bumpy. So I need to quilt them just enough to lay smooth.

I know all the "rules" about having quilting that is consistent across the quilt surface so that it hangs right, etc., but I think it is also nice to see the contrast in textures with different types of quilting, especially when its use or lack of use works conceptually with the design. Hold your torches please, I am not a big fan of the trend toward excessive infinitesimal all over quilting.