Quilting Woes

After bragging yesterday about finding the perfect machine quilting combination of machine, needle, and thread, I started having problems. I broke a needle! I very rarely break a needle. These are strong needles made of hardened chrome plated steel, so when they break there is a loud sound and it's scary!
I calmed myself down, replaced that needle, changed the quilting foot and vowed to slow down.

another broken needle

But then I broke a second needle! 
I have quilted so many quilts and never broken a needle, so it was shocking to have TWO breaks on one project! I reminded myself that this quilt has a lot of intense piecing in it, and lots of bulk at the seam joins. I decided to have more respect for my poor old machine trying to power through the big lumps of fabric where blocks join together. 
I pushed through the frustration, slowed to a snail's pace, and finished quilting the blocks. 

Then for the border quilting, I stitched a zigzag quilting line on both sides of the accordion pattern. It was very tedious with the walking foot, with so many twists and turns of the quilt each time the direction changed. So I switched to the free motion foot.  Ahhhh... delightful! My accuracy declines when I'm stitching straight lines with the free motion foot, but I am willing to sacrifice perfection for enjoyment! It's just so much fun when you have the perfect combination of the right quilting foot, needle, thread, and speed.

The quilting is finally done and I have 2 days to make the binding, get it attached to the quilt, and hand stitched down to meet my May goal for OMG.
Oh the drama!

These are the lovely medium blue fabrics that were leftover from the quilt that will become the binding. There will be approximately 300" of binding to hand stitch by friday. It's possible that I might reach my goal if I work on it every moment that I'm not working or sleeping!