Progress is Relative

I have limited my posts for some very good reasons.  I spent an additional 14 hours of my life working on transitioning older daughter's room into usable real estate (added to a previous epic marathon).  6 hours were spent on dismantling a loft that once held a twin size bed (but more recently just collected junk).  The rest was spent helping younger daughter to paint.  Unfortunately, the room had been painted a very dark shade of grey with an assortment of red/black enamel artwork painted over it.  I know that I should be impressed that the deluxe primer/paint that I bought actually covered that saturated of colors...but at $40 a gallon, I was really expected it to cover in one coat and bring me a latte in the morning.  It looks great at night in dim light, but I'm afraid there's another coat in the future of this room.  On the bright side, the roll top desk (that is too big for the kitchen space it's been living in for 10 years) will be moving into this corner and housing the sewing machine and serger, thus moving the sewing stuff out of the living room for the first time in 7 years.  Cool.

I have actually been working on some applique.  I last posted on this July 1st when I posted some close ups of the applique and June 30th with a wide shot.  Once again, I'm forced to apologize for the quality of the photos.  I had planned to replace the broken camera, but instead had to buy a new refrigerator AND a new computer AND a new expresso machine.  All are equally critical at my house.  No, that's a lie.  The expresso machine got replaced immediately.  I got by with marginal options for 2.5 months on the computer and had decided over 3 months ago that since I have a wine fridge and a small freezer I could wait for the squealing, shreeeeking, moaning fridge to really die before I bought a new one.  Several consecutive sleepless nights changed my mind.
Oh, but anyway, about the applique.... Looking at my checklist, I've actually done well.  Funny how it doesn't seem that way when picking away at little bits at a time.   Here's my goal list and the outcome.  Picture above is current, below was nearly 2 mo ago.

My "to do" list:
* leaves for the lower left. - added several stems and 12 2-part leaves on the lower left, between the 2 flowers and the heart motif.  
* blue stamens for the 3 left flowers. - done, both the embroidery and the annoying little dots.
* connecting vining of some sort from the bird to the lower right. Added a stem and large 2-color leaf
* ditto the center loop section toward the left - seem to have ignored that but added a good sized leaf in the center and one directly above it pointed toward the hearts. 
* one more bracket of 4 hearts on the right side - Done
* design tropunto for the center 1/6th of the quilt to include all the bits and pieces from the outer border. Uh, not done.  Still tweaking the leaf issues on the applique.

So what's left?  I'm quite happy with the lower left section.  I periodically think that I'd be happier with a couple more leaves.  I may be able to talk myself out of all but 1 of them.  On the upper right, there are about 5 more small leaves begging to be included.  On the other hand, I'm trying to convince myself that I only need a short stem and small leaf headed out of the upper circle pointed toward the gap in in hearts. 

I plan to hand quilt b/c I love the extra texture, but have sections for which I am considering FMQ by machine.  I think trapunto will really help...can I use that for some of the leaves that I was considering applique? If I machine quilt some leaves, would that make them stand out more than if I hand quilted? Green vs white thread? Machine vs hand for the trapunto sections (I've never hand-trapunto so I don't know if it's worth the extra effort over machine for texture).  If I add more leaves, will it take away from the white space that exists to the point it just looks weird?  My original plan for this quilt involved a sawtooth border (pink/white) of HST, maybe just along the left and lower side.  Yes/No?

I welcome your input, though I reserve the right to ignore it and do something I hadn't even listed here.