Appliqué Stitching

So I've started stitching my monkeys for the baby quilt. I'm not sure how to feel about this. I'm okay with the result but I would have rather had something different. I did halfway through figure out how I could accomplish closer stitches together and also mirrored stitches but I was already too far to turn around. So I'm happy with the result but I think I will try something different with the next appliqué project. So here is the progress so far.

I have only stitched the brown pieces so far. I need to stitch the cream pieces and the black pieces. So all in all, I'm happy with my first attempt with appliqué. I figure it's like everything else, practice makes perfect :)

I didn't have as much time to sew tonight as I would have liked since it was a gorgeous day and our lawn needed a DESPERATE mowing. Tomorrow night should be a good sewing night since my hubby will be heading to a movie with his guy friends. So sewing is a priority for me tomorrow night :)

Oh I almost forgot. I picked up a bit more fabric from the store that is sadly closing. I purchased more fabric, most of it was extra fabric of the ones that I had picked up the day before but my attention was caught on these panels.

I just love them. So classic! And then to see the quilts on the clothesline in one of the panels was just too much for me. So I purchased 3 panels which has 6 images to one panel. I was thinking of making placemats with one panel for sure. I think just adding a border to them would finish them off for placemats. And I'm not sure what to do with the rest of the panels.

Any ideas?