The finished project of 2008

The only other things I didn't mention in my previous post, are the stuff that I have this blog for, the art stuff. I had one major project that I started in April and finished in... November. It was a big one though, so I guess 6 months or so isn't too bad.

I started with the leftover fabric that I dyed for the background of my X's quilt. I cut half of each color into 4.25 inch squares and then cut leaf shapes out of the other half of each color. I arranged the squares on my design wall and then fused them to the batting, with extra room all the way around.

My original idea was to have a leaf in each background square. So I pinned them all up, varying the color combinations.
That seemed pretty boring when I finally saw it all together. I liked, it, but it wasn't anything special. So I added some more leaves and moved some around, so it looked more "messy" and I was happy with it.

All of that only took two evenings to accomplish. The quilting was what took the most time. I used a tight satin stitch to sew the veins and stem on each leaf, and then did free motion quilting everywhere else. And the result is:
This is one of my favorite finished projects I've done. The colors are very soothing and I think the overall design is pleasing and has interesting focal points without being too realistic or representational. The only thing I could still do to it is clip all the threads on the back. Does anyone know if that is necessary if it were to be in a show? Do the judges look at the backs of the wall quilts?