STARS off the frame

I finished the machine quilting on the STARS quilt-along quilt today.  This is a huge mental weight gone, because as you may remember, my Megaquilter has been a bit tetchy of late.  I unpicked the original variegated pink Gutermann thread that I had started with, and threaded back up with the cone of eggshell that I've used for many quilts already.  I will need to get more of that soon, because it seems to be working when nothing else will.  There were only about 4 times that the thread broke on me, and that's within normal operating parameters.  It's when the needle breaks or the thread forms nests on the back that I start ranting. 

I had little patience left by this time, so I quilted in the widest possible meandering with no particular goal other than holding the layers together and not looking too ugly.  It worked!  At a distant glance there are no ugly spots!  Now I just need to trim the edges and apply binding.  It is destined to be another quilt to donate to the Cedar Tree auction coming up.  It's a great color scheme and I'm sure there will be lots of little girls who'd love it on their beds.

On the Christmas front... while I stand by my earlier post distancing myself from all Christmas-themed or Christmas-deadline crafting, reality is beginning to set in.  I will not be joining the 1st OPC quilting party tomorrow... not so much because I don't want to be quilting, but because we are chopping down and decorating the tree tomorrow, and that has to take precedence.  It would also be the logical day for some cookie-baking and, yes, even cleaning.