Works In Progress: S is for Basting and Quilting!

I worked some on my big S Quilt over the weekend, and thought I'd show a little of my progress.  As of the last post, I'd just used water-soluble thread to sew in some faux-trapunto, and before layering the main batting and backing, I did some quilting over these regions.  I wanted them to have some stitching, but I didn't want to completely flatten out the trapunto.  We'll see how it looks in the end.  The main region in which I used the faux-trapunto was the dragon.  Here's what he looks like with some scales and feathers quilted in.  Ignore the ugly white stitching around the dragon, that's the water-soluble thread that will go away once I wash it.

For layering the whole quilt, I used wool batting and so far I like it.  Instead of spray basting I tried a new method this time.  You guys know how much I use spray baste, but it doesn't seem to hold things together as well on bigger projects and it makes a really big mess.  My mom recommended Sharon Schamber's method for basting.  She has two great youtube videos demonstrating the process (here and here) that are definitely worth a watch.  I went ahead and used her method, boards and all, and it worked great.  I used the herring-bone basting stitch as she recommends and it seems to be holding things together pretty well.  You just cut the basting stitches out as you go, and I haven't had any problems with them yet.

These are the big basting stitches.

The only regions I've quilted so far (in addition to the dragon) are some leaves and the tree branch.  I did pebbles and some spiky things in the leaves, and used a sort of modified version of this stitch from Leah over at the Free Motion Quilting Project for the branch.  Now I just have to plan the rest of it!

Sorry this one is so out of focus, I had a really hard time taking pictures of the brown.

What about you guys?  Any progress on the pile of UFOs?  I have such a hard time not starting new things, and now I have to switch from this quilt to focus on my swap quilt for the SewHappyGeek swap.