Quilting started

I started the quilting on Terms of Endearment yesterday. Decided to start with the one area I was absolutely sure of - that big orange square in the lower right. I wanted to put all our names and the year in, but ran out of room. My sweetie's name is above mine, just respecting his privacy some by not showing the close-up.

Ran out of space for our last name and the year, but I'll fit them in somewhere. You can still see some of my chalk marks on here - I had to re-apply the chalk for the lower letters a few times.

I started out using the stem stitch with size 8 perle cotton but quickly discovered that was going to be a pain in the ass with a quilt this large. That and I didn't like the look of it. Switched to all 6-strands of embroidery floss in purple. Very happy with how that looks. I did have to redo the "i" in Lily because I hadn't left enough room between the dot and the rest of the letter and it just mooshed together - combined with it's placement with the "L" it just looked like a deformed "U."

Now I'm not quite sure what to do with the rest of the terms of endearment I'd like to put on there. Do I do them large as well? If so, I'll have to put them on sideways to make good use of the long rectangles. Still to be determined.

Told you my friend is back in town. We're going to go out playing - looking at carpets - so I think that's it for me today. Cheers.