I fixed it!

My little yellow and white quilt top has been taken apart and put back together, this time with the right shade of white for the plain blocks. It looks much better, especially now that it's quilted and has the binding almost on.

The whole point of this quilt was to use up the cute old Raggedy Ann and Andy fabric I found at that rummage sale.



I've still got enough left for a second quilt, and a third pieced backing, but I'm going to wait until I've got the right fronts to go with them.

That's the good news. The bad news is that the Janome still sounds like a jackhammer when I try to free motion quilt. I've been piecing for weeks without the slightest problem, but it gets ornery when I try to quilt.

I've googled, but there aren't any obvious search terms that will get me what I want. I've asked on my favorite quilting list, and the best suggestion there is that I'm trying to move the fabric too fast and moving the needle out of position.

Maybe that's it. It does sound better if I concentrate and force myself to move the fabric really really slowly...but it's always worked before now. Unless the pain in my shoulders has me doing things differently without realizing it.

I've got a stack of new baby quilt tops and want to get them done. So I cross hatched one and stitched one in the ditch and I strongly prefer the ones with loops and spirals. So I thought I could quilt ten or twenty minutes at a time this afternoon as a break from gutting the pantry.

Because I've got to completely empty the room to make space for Bill to install my exciting new toy. It will just barely fit where the wooden shelves are now. I'll have to wiggle in past the furnace to get at it, but the promise of having all of the cans out of my awful kitchen drawers makes that seem like a small sacrifice.

I'm always trying to stock up on extra stuff "in case of," but a combination of the most poorly designed kitchen cabinets (I don't even have cabinets, I have drawers that won't open or close when they're full) ever and two preschoolers who refuse to be convinced that cans are not building blocks has been driving me slowly crazy. I think this might be the answer.

Ever noticed how many of the answers to your problems are at Costco?