Machine quilting......grrrrrrr!

This is what I could see from out of my window this morning. A beautiful fall day. The harvest is over for the year and the yield was above expectation. The year has been the dryest on record. We have had some rain, but could use more. I still have not done my fall clean-up in the garden. The begonias are still blooming and I like to see color as long as possible. The winter is long enough. And what did I find this morning? A new pansy. I had some blooming under the snow this spring and it looks like I will still have some once the snow comes. I love their cheery colors.

This last week I have been working hard on machine quilting the farm quilt and it did not go well at all. The sky went ok. After that I quilted around the tree trunks. I found out, that this made the roof puffy, so the next step was to quilt along all the roof tiles. But, after a good look I realized that one corner of the barn seemed to have sunk in the clay. Laurence told me to leave it like this( it is an old barn,, right!) ,but I could not do it, so there had to be some remedial work done. By that time the border looked all frilly. First I tackled the inner border, so far so good. Then I quilted the outside border in straight lines, 1/4 inch apart and ...it started to look much better. Today I sewed the foliage down and after going through a whole pack of needles that job is also finished. This picture shows a part of the back.Now the finishing touches yet. You notice that for the back I choose fabric with a maple leaf?
I have the next project all ready. When I asked Shawn and Emily what quilt they would like me to make for their wedding, the answer was a red and green Mariner Compass ...and not those with 8 points!
So I thought that this one had 32 points, but after having a closer look I find, that there are 64 points. Now I'm not a good piecer at the best of times, even using the paper piecing method.
I will give it ONE try. If it does not work out, the next one will have 32 points and so down the line till I can manage it.