I finally got the courage to baste the Florabunda top. I got everything set up on Thursday evening and spent a few hours crawling around on my knees to thread baste the top. Not my favorite part of the quilting process, to be sure, but good music on the stereo and the promise of a glass of wine when I finished helped make it a little less distasteful. I may, however, have to find another place to baste quilts. My knees complain more and more when I crawl around without the help of knee pads.
I've started the quilting around all the flowers in the center first. I was going to do all the quilting with a "grape" colored thread, but I think I'm going to use a few colors - pale pink around the pink, yellow around the yellow and green around the leaves and stems. I haven't decided how I will quilt the basket yet. The backgrounds will have straight cross-hatching.
I also started machine quilting on the hand-pieced maple leaf quilt.
Our guild is having a show in May and I would like to have this completed by then. I'm doing a medium stipple in the backgrounds and will do some additional quilting on the large maple leaves. I don't know what design that will be yet. And, the light border on the outside will get another quilted design. I'll figure that out later, too.
That's what I'll be working on for a while. I'm out of small, carry along hand work for the moment. I'm thinking I need another scrappy hand piecing project.
