Wholecloth....lessons learned #3

Well, here it is.  It's gone from the frame to the table.  I am not done with it yet, so I'm sure I'll have many more things to learn.  ha!   First of all, I really do like it  The front is a celery green, and the back is a royal blue, with lime green thread.  The lighting wasn't the best, obviously I'll have to learn how to take better pictures before it's all done.  There are so many errors in this quilt, it's a shame.
Back to the lessons. So...  here we go:

1)  Don't pebble all the feather stems.  I wanted to leave some unfilled, but once I had done it to one quadrant, I then realized I must do it to all those same feathers. 

2)  Make sure you've got a good audio book going while you bury and tie off those threads.  It really helps.  I've always suspected that I am a bit twisted, (if you read my older posts you'll learn that I actually loved  "skinning" a queen sized quilt) because I was really starting to enjoy all that tying and burying.  Uh?

3)  All crystals are not alike.  I am planning on adding some crystals to this, and I think the first set I bought at JoAnns are the wrong type, they're not adhesive.

4)  When you start a project like this, make sure you have lots and lots of time.  I couldn't even begin to count the number of hours that has gone into this, beginning with learning how to create feathers, then drawing the wholecloth, then marking, yadda, yadda.

5)  Get your design perfect, and mark it perfectly before you begin stitching. 

Where do I go from here?  Well, I'm still learning about this, but I believe I need to

1)attach the crystals first

2)get it wet, and then I'm going to attempt to remove the pencil lines that I idiotically drew on the fabric (before I starched it).

3) if I cannot get the pencil marks out, I am going to paint those areas with a textile paint.

4) block it (I've never blocked a quilt so this will be another learning experience.

5)  bind it.

If you have any suggestions or tips for me, please comment, I need all the help I can get.