Progress on Pieceful Garden

Remember at the end of July when I showed you this.

Well I am still plugging away at it.  I started with the flowers.  They are finished except for the embroidered vines.  They look pretty much the same as before except now they are appliqued down.  I am really happy with how they turned out.  

After the flowers were done I started on the leaves.  This is where I started having a few headaches.  The leaves are paper pieced, which was not hard.

 I pieced each side separately, cut them down and then joined them together with a skinny stem.  Then the headaches started.  The instructions said to piece each leaf into the block with curved seams.  I hate curved seams!  I guess I just haven't pieced them enough to feel comfortable with it yet.  So I decided to bag the curved seams and just applique them on top.  Oh, that was easier said than done.  I usually starch the seam allowance down, glue it on and then sew.  Well I was afraid the bulkiness of paper piecing wouldn't iron down.  So I drew the  seam allowance line on top and then used the needle turn applique method.  It worked, but it took forever.  It was hard to get a nice curve where there was a lot of fabric to turn under.  Finally it came together to look like this.  

The flowers were added after the leaves and I still may change the centers to a dark green color.  Not sure yet.  I was really hoping to have it completed this weekend and I might since I don't have to go to work today.  

I laid a few pieces out to see what they would look like together.  

I think I will really like it.  I'm worried the background fabrics contrast a little too much.  Hopefully it will look alright when it is finished.  I'm glad it will be done soon.  I have so many other quilts I want to start on, but I told myself I wasn't going to start any new ones until I had one finished.