The Sweet is on

Well, I'm nearing the home stretch on the Sewn Spaces Swap and my sewing machine cover is ALMOST done! I posted a sneak peek on the Flickr group site, (since I'm terrible at 20 questions), and I'm enjoying reading all the comments.  Here are some more photos of the cover and it's hidden goodies.

beaded flower centers, embroidery stitching around the flowers and miss lady bug on the positionable 3-D leaves

close-up of the bee (this is the photo I used on the Sewn Spaces Swap)

top of cover, clouds, breeze and a bitty bird

bird in the clouds, "resting" on the breeze, close-up

cover just needs the binding at the bottom

Here is the scoop on the cover and what I was thinking about when I was putting all the pieces together.  I used the same blues all over but staggered them on the front; keeping it simple on the sides and the back. I did some quilting, 1/4 of an inch from the stitch lines in metallic silver thread, on both sides and back (if you squint you can barely make it out). I quilted as I went on the front. There is a lot going on on the front and I wanted to keep that "simple" (ha).  I continued the bees onto both sides and used different bee buttons- I know, I know.  The top was tempting, almost as prominent as the front and since we were in the garden, what I see when I look up is the sky. So, I randomly pieced what I had left from all those lovely blue strips, added some fluffy clouds, some edge stitching, some metallic silver paint (the proverbial silver lining, no?), embroidery "breeze", and a bird. I kept the grass only on the front although I tell you I was tempted to go all the way around.

As you can see from the bottom photo, all I need is the binding.  Now, here is what I would like to know. Would you fiddle with the binding, making the front green and the sides and back blue? or would you go with the same binding all the way around and if you would keep it all the same color,  what color would you use? I'll leave the binding up to all of you, so go ahead and tell me what you think.