The finished top looked like this:

Then I had to figure out how to quilt it.  I am so fortunate to have a used longarm: a Handiquilter 16.  I'm pretty inexperienced with it, so I knew that there would be many opportunities to destroy the quilt.  I loaded some old pillowcases onto the frame and tried out lots of patterns.  I was able to do a decent woodgrain pattern, so I used that on the gray shelf pieces.

I took a longarm quilting class with Dawn Cavanaugh at the AQS show in Lancaster in March and asked her advice on how to quilt the white background.  I was so afraid that I would draw the eye away from the pots or that I would make a mistake that stood out.  She suggested trying to make the white look like whitewashed adobe with up-and-down lines that curved into each other and left some empty spaces.  I was able to do it, and I like the way it turned out.