I just finished a new little wholecloth piece. I had made one of these a couple of months ago, but I was not happy with the end result. I decided to give it a second try. What I did differently the second time was to do the entire background in a light cream thread, and I only used two different quilting designs. This piece was made with cotton sateen, merino wool batting, and taupe and cream colored Mettler threads. Tropical Leaves: 20" x 20" ( final piece) On the first piece, the quilted section in the very center detracts from the whole piece. Although I had chosen a very light gray thread, it came out looking very dark on the piece. When I designed this piece, I paid special attention to the negative space. However, when it is over-emphasized, it becomes the focal point which was not my intention. First attempt To avoid duplicating what went wrong the first time, I took my original drawing, photographed it, and then created multiple small images on one piece of paper so that I could draw in my quilting lines with pencil first. This helped me to better visualize the effect I wanted to achieve. This is much easier than ripping out unwanted stitching. Here are a couple of close-up shots of the machine stitching process. Whenever I have a somewhat large area to be filled with lots of stitching, I will stitch through the center of the open area to divide it into sections as I work. This helps to keep any of the fullness evenly divided: helps in avoiding puckers. You might wonder why I have a photo of a bowl of orange peels included in this post. Well, I am a person who has a very rapid metabolism which means that I have to eat about every two hours. But, when I am engrossed with an art project, everything else fades into the background; including the need for food or other minor issues. The two little mandarin oranges of which you see the remains were my dinner on the evening that I was hell-bent on finishing this piece. I mounted the finished piece on a piece of archival foam core that I had covered with a beautiful piece of European linen. I have three of my larger original wholecloths posted here if you are interested: https://www.sproulestudios.com/gallery/132