Thanks for all the kind words. I did FMQ around the appliques and used my walking foot to do the straight line stitching on the border. I learned a lot from this quilt: scalloped borders are kind of a pain but they add a lot to the overall design, next time I would use MistyFuse (softer than Steam a Seam 2) or window pane the appliques, they are too stiff, minky is way easier to use than I thought. I also learned that once you start out with tiny stippling you have to stick with it all the way. Next time I would use bigger stippling from the get-go.