Where HAVE I been?!

Anyone think I've left for parts unknown....? It's been a hectic couple of weeks... First, snowed OFF the mountain and OUT of my mountain home... at the same time family arrived from out of town and my new long arm ( I'm practicing on donated philanthropy quilts) is experiencing break-in complications. It will all settle down in time.

Family is tucked into my small studio down off the mountain so it's quite a challenge but getting better. For stress relief last 'night' after all went to bed, I was able to get at my domestic machine and quilt a barter piece created by a friend. So, the question here is.... what to do with an applique with a complicated patterned batik fabric? I have simple thinking on something like this.... my goal is to showcase the applique. I'm not as interested in trying to showoff any fancy quilting atop the busy scaled batik. Frankly, it would be hard to achieve but more importantly wouldn't seem important to the desired central focus. On a different fabric... perhaps a different approach. No real rules, eh?
So... first to stitch as close as possible around applique elements on the light pink fabric. After that, despite what some think is unimaginative quilting ( the stipple) I like adding small scale stipple meandering when I don't wish to draw any attention to the stippled areas.
This goes back to friend Hilary Field.

It was good to get back to the sound of a hmmmming machine.