If you wait long enough, I do eventually put two and two together.

So there's this book I've had sitting out on my sewing table with the project since pretty near the beginning. It's about machine embroidery and embellishing, which is certain to be a part of this quilt.

It's called Threadplay: Mastering Machine Embroidery Techniques, and it's written by Libby Lehman.

I'm pretty sure that the idea for the ribbons (instead of bodies) came at least partly from this book, since it's been sitting right here next to (that is to say, on top of) the pattern for so long, and one of the most striking things she teaches in this book is how to make a winding ribbon pattern out of machine embroidery.

Winding ribbon pattern? Check!

Out of machine embroidery? Duhhhhhh!

It's a little boggling that I could have had the one idea without the other, but they're safely back together now. Making the ribbons out of thread stitched over the background instead of slices of fabric sewn or fused in place will do several things.

First, and best, it will let them be more ethereal, which I think is a plus.

Second, it will free us up to have a nice, dense, rich, complicated background without worrying that we are "using up" specific fabrics or, indeed, colors that we might otherwise want to save for the ribbons.

Third, the contrast issue is less likely to be a problem because the stitching can include light, medium and dark shades of thread, and can be as transparent or as dense as we want. So they should show up against anything. If I do it right ;)

Fourth, it will make the quilt much more interesting and unique because most quilters don't use this technique. It looks interesting. It makes you want to look more closely.

And there are probably a couple of other good reasons as well.

Oh, like this one: It would mean that going ahead and piecing together a lovely, luscious background would pretty much be the next step here. So, fun!