I've reassessed Vessels. The background was grayed over and taking away from almost everything I put on it. I could have continued, but I would never have been happy with the project. So I started over, choosing another neutral for the background.

Often in the past (and I suspect often in other people's lives) I would have told myself: I spent $27 dollars on this fabric. I BOUGHT IT FOR THIS PROJECT. And I'm going to make myself use it, even if it makes me unhappy.
Then I wonder why I'm not happy working on the project or happy with the results when it's done.

So I rethought this stage. I picked up a printed beigy 108" wide backing fabric. This will let me make all 3 pieces and not worry about coming up an inch short in width when I cut it apart. I'm NOT using all 108"... but something more like 50" instead of the stretch of a 43" that I was trying to force myself into.

Room to play. That's a good thing.

This background is printed, but it's so subtle that the design doesn't add or subtract anything to the project. You have to look really close to see it's there.

The original background had a nice mottled textured and a subtile swirly pattern on it. I had planned on stitching in "shadowy" vase shapes behind the vases that will appliqued to it. I dont' think these shapes will work with the new background.

Change in background, change in plans.

The new background is fused to batting (Quilters Dream poly Select). I have the threads picked out I'll be working on. Today I'll pick a pretty built in stitch on my machine and stitch rows colors down the fabric. (referring, I hope, back to the idea of an old fashioned wallpaper).

I'm going to talk more about my frequent practice (ok it's becoming part of my style, I think) of quilting a piece somewhere in the middle of construction. But I'm going to do later this week.

Today I've got to get stitching.