Why I pasted lace motifs on separately

Needleroozer was kind enough to phone me today, and we had a wonderful, wide-ranging chat. But I forgot to mention to her why I pasted the lace motifs on separately . . . so I thought I would post it here. For these pieces, the layer of scrim or hem lace is just the background. Getting the background to stick takes a LOT of paint. By the time I finish, the piece is so saturated that it takes about 12-18 hours to dry. I've been reticent to try to attach the motifs at that time, thinking that it would just NEVER dry.

And so to save time, I've been painting the motifs off to the side while the background is drying and then using fabric glue to attach them. I probably *could* attach them with paint if I'm using the same paint as the background, but if I used a mix of paints (such as in the blue piece with the one motif in the center) and I ran out of that specific mix, it would be VERY hard to match. And since attaching the motif takes a lot of paint, the paint I used on the motif would spread to the background in what I think would be a yucky way. So, painting and then gluing seemed the least agony. But if someone has a better idea, I'd love to hear it.

With my current method, it takes a while (layers) to make the motifs seem integral to the piece instead of sort of hovering on top of it. One thing that has helped has been a weak wash over the entire piece, but this is a challenge if I really want to retain the background color, as I do in the butterfly piece. I'm still trying to figure out how to integrate the butterflies without washing out the background too much.