Appliqued Lupine Wall Hanging for my Daughter and SIL to be

My daughter and her partner went to Iceland the end of June and came home early July engaged! There were large fields of lupines everywhere and my daughter was taking pictures in a field of lupines when the question was popped.  Here is one of her pictures:

To commemorate the occasion, I decided to make them a lupine wall hanging.  I found a pattern by Dana Verrengia, Wildfire Designs Alaska which I purchased from Northern Threads (https://www.northernthreads.net/shop/c/p/Lupine-Wildfire-Pattern-by-Wildfire-Designs-x15897803.htm)

I don't normally applique and if I do it is something very simple.  The first day I started out cutting out the background grass and some timothy and got them fused together. So far so good.  I'm not really loving the grass, but I really like the timothy! Like that sky fabric too. (The design wall could use a good de-threading though):

The second day I started cutting out tons of teeny tiny little lupine pieces and started to wonder if I would be able to figure out where they all went and get this project finished or not.  The cutting out of teeny tiny pieces also continued into another day:

The fourth day I started working on fusing the teeny tiny lupine pieces together and I am feeling confident I can get it done and have it look decent.  Here is a picture of the main lupine stalk about half done on my Teflon pressing sheet beside the pattern so you can compare:

Here is the main lupine stalk as well as two little ones fully done and all added to the wall hanging.  I'm feeling pretty pleased with my progress and liking that the grass is getting more and more covered up.  (The design wall could still use a good de-threading. Any suggestions on a good way to accomplish it without affecting the batting?):

Here is a close up that shows all the teeny tiny pieces in the lupine blossoms:

The only thing left now is the big lupine leaves.  I got them all traced on my last bit of fusible and ironed on ready for cutting.  WHAT!  All my material to this point was either a solid or a batique which meant there was no right or wrong side to the fabric as either side could be used.  The fabric I had for the leaves was only printed on one side and I ironed the fusible to the right side of the fabric instead of the back which meant I ruined the fabric and wasted the fusible.  Since it was 4 in the afternoon, I decided to call it quits until another day.

A couple of days later I had more fusible and got the lupine leaves done.  Since some of the leaves hang out of the picture onto the border I also had to attach it.  I was working with a jelly roll and only had one WOF strip of each colour so the border had to be two colours:

Here it is bound with two colours of green fabric.  I left the pins in it just in case I get the courage up to do some thread painting before declaring it done:

Here is the back where you can see the triangular corners to hold a dowel as well as the label (I have obscured their last names for privacy):

And here are my daughter Ainsley and SIL to be Jack opening it on Christmas morning:

As you can see, I did not add any additional thread painting or stitching, maybe once I've had more practice I can embellish it.

Here's another of my daughter's pictures of the  lupine fields in Iceland:

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it up Friday http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.ca/2017/12/maine-socks-and-stash-organization.html