Crazy Quilt Block 2 Day 2

Today I have both painting and Crazy Quilt classes.  Since it is almost impossible to paint on a secret birthday gift painting while the birthday person is in the same room, when I had time for fun things this week (thank you , again, Karen!), I worked on the second block of my crazy quilt.

Here you can see them side by side (click to enlarge).  I have added some ribbon embroidery around the two purchased flowers on the

upper left of my mother's photo, and somehow an orange tree emerged from my needle on the ribbon frame to the left of the flowers.  Mother is wearing a pearl necklace now, and there is a matching pearl on the taupe flower .  There are also some gold beads in the center of the gold outline-flower on the black fabric.  The skylark/swallow has been removed until I find a better placement. 

I've also changed some of the fabric placements.  The broad twill ribbon with the music on it has a different slant, and I think it looks better where it is now.  It's too bad some of the musical notation is lost with this new position, but one can't have everything.  The angles of the two greens and the orange fabrics on the right-hand side have been reduced, but whether this will be final, I don't know yet.  The problem is the orange fabric is the intended "canvas" for my large embroidery work.  In the Day 1 photo you can see there is ample room to work; Day 2's alteration offers less.  I will have to draw what I want to embroider on paper, cut it out, and place it on the block to see if it will work as things are now or not.

That actually has to be done before I do any of the seam covering embroidery.  Once those seams receive their "fancy stitching", there won't be any changes made (unsewing complex stitches on fragile fabrics is not recommended - as least I don't recommend it!)  and the resultant fabric shapes will be permanent.  This time I will stitch the seams before doing the embroidery, I think.  On the first block, I worked the butterfly before the seams and my threads kept catching on the pins securing the unstitched seams.  Quite annoying!

However, a heavily stitched area such as the one I am planning for the orange, may pull the fabric in  and possibly distort the seams.  Hmmm . . . I think I have a problem for Bonnie (crazy quilt teacher) to help me solve. . . .