Shaded Swirls

I spent Monday evening frankensteining some batting, then layered up a sandwich with the background white of my problem quilt.  I spent Tuesday evening trying out my various thread colors.  My lighting this morning was terrible, but you can get an idea of my test piece.  The lower right corner is all done in taupe.  The middle section is done in buff, the upper in ecru.  All of the double wavy lines are done in the taupe, just like on my real quilt.

This confirms the taupe is too dark.  But I liked the buff better than the ecru, which surprised me a bit.  I found the buff a little easier to work with, too, especially with the pebbles.  I could see what I stitched a little better, and that helped me steer more accurately.

Both the buff and the ecru keep the taupe lines from leaping off the quilt.  Part of me still wants to rip it all out.  But since the existing work should blend in okay, I'll probably leave it in place.  At least that seems to be the case with my small scale test.

I spent the rest of the evening with scrap paper practicing swirls.  I am pleased that my practice ones are smooth, but they still look lumpy compared to the beautiful swirls I see online.  Nothing like craving perfection as I'm still learning how to stitch, right?  But even an hour of doodling helped me see a few little tweaks I could do to make mine look better. 

Linking up with Freemotion by the River's Linky Tuesday.