The winter is long and the going is slow

So today was going to be the day to get this little quilt done. And I did work on it for several hours this morning. First, I had to cut the basket fabric into strips (cut on both the crosswise and lengthwise grain) and piece them together again to give the basket more dimension. That turned out to be a good idea. The simple diagonally printed fabric looks much more basket-like after being pieced with its pattern in alternating directions.

Then, there was the bird. My first bird effort looked like the poor thing had wrung its little neck. Back to the book (Bird in Hand by Ginger Cookie Company) for reference. Seems I had reversed the bird. Re-cut bird. The only pieces of the pattern I'm using are the bird and basket and the basket is pretty hard to mess up. Good thing all those fruits and berries were already printed for me. All I had to do was cut out the design.

Here all is arranged pretty darned close to how I envision the finished applique. Truly, I did think I could get this all done today.


This is how far I got. I am doing a straight stitch raw-edge applique on some insanely little stems and leaves. Seriously. Check out the size of those berries. I thought this would be quick?
I can't blame the delay entirely on the size of the pieces I chose to work with. Since I'm really winging (no pun intended) this one (other than the bird and basket), my mind is reeling with border possibilities. The piece is currently 21x27 and can be no larger than 30x36, so I don't have a lot of room to play with, but I do want a nice frame around this little fruit basket (or is it a corduroy purse?). I have a very small amount of fabric that would make a great scallop on a border and I spent a good deal of time playing with that. Then again, if I refer back to the book and the original design inspiration, there is a dog-tooth border that is pretty darned attractive, but I'm liking the way the design is looking to the right (despite my personal leanings toward the left) and think maybe just the right and lower edge would have a pieced border. What to do, what to do...