Quilting Grades

Snow. Snow. And more snow! This is our third snowstorm in a week. But tonight the snow caused my quilt guild meeting to be cancelled, so that means there were a lot of unhappy quilters sitting at home watching American Idol instead of visiting their quilting friends and seeing beautiful quilts! Oh well...better to be safely snuggled under a warm quilt, than to be driving on the highways in a snowstorm. This is a photo of my hedge after our second snowstorm...the little branches were so weighed down by all the snow. I hope it survives this brutal winter weather.
In all my spare moments I have been working on the comfort quilt. I finished stitching in the ditch in all directions and gave myself a "B" for not riding up out of the ditch too often. But I gave myself a "C" for my basting job because look what happened at the ends of some of the seams! I got some big nasty bulges ahead of the walking foot. That means I didn't pull the quilt top taut enough when basting, and the walking foot pushed the excess fabric along as I quilted.
I then gave myself a "D" for attitude...and not being kind, gentle and patient with myself, since I had tried my best!! Once I calmed down and re-pinned all the borders, I moved on to my favorite part... the free motion quilting. I used a varigated Sulky blendable thread to quilt a flower in the centre of each of the 48 blocks. And finally I earned an "A" and started having fun!
While working on the flowers, the quilt was whispering something about ideas for quilting the border and I'm eager to get to that part and see how it works out. I wonder if this quilt will be quiet when it is finished??!!