Uh, Oh...Designs Don't Show!

What I was afraid of has come true...the vine and leaf designs do not show with the busy bubble quilting surrounding them. The threads are too close to the same value and the patterns I used are busy in the background and the stem and leaves so what I get is mush!

I decided to go over all the quilting lines with a heavier green thread and hoped that would help...not too much difference with it either.  The photo on the right is after I quilted with the new green thread...see it still looks like mush.

To save this quilt this called for a new technique... for me anyway. I got out my Prismacolor colored pencils and started shading the edges of the quilted leaves and stems....what a difference it has made.  I blended them with my finger and an eraser.

I used several shades of green and yellow plus a little red on the darker edge of the leaves and stems. They don't pop off the quilt but you can see them - kind of shadow like.

Since this quilt will not ever be washed I am not going to worry about setting the pencils with some kind of medium. Don't have anything on hand that would work anyway.

I really like the way it turned out.  Now I can see the quilted vine and leaves and the shading is just the right amount to make them show up.  Think I will try them on the flowers a bit too and maybe I can get that purple one to show up more. 

Happy Quilting,
Lynn