I've been burned a few times with my "let's just see where this goes" attitude. Sometimes it goes fabulously & I'm not sure I'll be able to encore it. Sometimes it doesn't work out at all & I find I've wasted a huge amount of time on handwork only to have the finished item become a "blooper".
As I plan to handstitch this I wanted to test run on the machine...I think we are on the right track.
Hooray.