Pink Pinwheels

I found The Crafty Cupboard on Pinterest, and I enjoy seeing Melanie's quilts and various craft and decor projects.  When I saw her cute pink pinwheel quilt (see it here), I had to make one.  I knew I had lots of pink and green fabrics left over from my daughter's quilt, and my husband had mentioned that a lady at his work was having a girl and he wanted to get a baby gift for her.  It worked out nicely for me!  The blocks were really easy and went pretty quickly... until I decided to change things up by putting them on the diagonal.  Which always makes the edges a little tricky.  I feel like when working on something like this, I frequently end up spending more time trying to think through the process than I would spend actually working on it.  This was definitely one of those times.  Once I figured it out, it went quickly. 

Then I decided to use a piece of minky for the back (because I love the soft backing on baby/lap quilts!), but it just wasn't quite big enough.  So I added a border and for fun, the baby girl's name.  Then I made the mistake of reading up on machine quilting with minky.  Well, maybe it wasn't a mistake, but it did freak me out about machine quilting it when I had only machine quilted one other quilt at that time. It recommended using a bigger pattern, so I tried using a wider version of the free motion stippling.  I like the look of smaller stippling better, though.  Luckily, the only trouble I had was with my machine that was once again breaking the thread every few inches.  Grrrr.  So frustrating.  The thread cartridge is off center somehow, so the whole contraption that holds the needle isn't quite centered, and the needle brushes up against the side of the hole in the bottom metal plate near the bobbin, and the friction cuts the thread. This is what I already paid to have repaired, but it's broken again already.  It is so not worth fixing again at that expense if it isn't going to stay fixed!  Anyway,  after many breaks (time-outs) so I could walk away and not throw the machine across the room, I was finally able to finish it!  Wahoo!  And the minky actually wasn't a problem to work with at all!  Just the stinkin' machine! 

If you have been meaning to try machine quilting, but are nervous, just go for it!  You'll never learn if you don't try!  I hope to get better and better at it with time and experience!  I wish I had just tried earlier, it wasn't anywhere near as scary/hard as I thought it would be.