Moon Glow Stars

I have been working hard on the Moon Glow quilt blocks, and I am not enjoying this very much.  The blocks have quite a few "inset seams" and I cannot seem to get the hang of it.  I also do not like the colors.  There is a dark purple color and a very dark navy blue in some of the the stars that seems to get lost against the black background.  It looks like pieces of the stars are missing, or lopsided.  I am hoping the "connecting blocks" will lighten it up.  Also, my blocks are consistently measuring 11.5 inches, and they are supposed to measure 11.75 inches.  I'm hoping that quarter inch is not gonna cause big headaches.  Here's what I have done so far:  10 different stars.

Moon Glow

Since my finger incident, I have put the deer quilt on hold for awhile.  Free-motion quilting doesn't appeal to me at the moment.  I thought I'd piece another quilt top and then go back to the quilting.  I have started a new quilt.  It's a kit I found online, called Moon Glow.  It's a darker quilt, but beautiful.  I ordered the fabric online and got started as soon as it came.  There are 13 compasses, and 12 log cabin squares.  This was originally a Block of the Month quilt. The pattern/directions is 76 pages long!

Klutz

On Wednesday, I was working on the deer quilt.  I am outline stitching the logs, trees, deer, cabin, etc, and it was going very well.  I must've been a little too confident, or going too fast, or not paying attention, or all of the above!  Anyway, my finger got under the quilting foot and the sewing machine needle plunged right through the fingernail and completely through the finger.  I had green thread sticking out!  The needle broke into 3 sections, the eye of the needle (about 1/2 in. long) was inside my finger, under the nail, completely buried.  In fact, I wasn't even sure if the needle tip was in there.  But I had an odd bulge near my fingertip, and it was extremely sensitive!  Oh my!!  So I called up the doctor, went in for an x-ray, and yes, it clearly showed in the x-ray that I had a needle in my finger!  This facilitated an in-office surgical procedure to remove the needle tip. Strangely enough, it did not bleed until the Dr. started probing for the needle (my finger had been highly numbed up for this.)  The Dr. cut through the pad of the finger so as to not damage the fingernail.  At any rate, I was sent home with antibiotics, pain meds, and a huge blue bandage!  I see the Dr. this afternoon for a post-op check, and I should be good to go again.  I will be more careful in the future for sure!  At least I didn't get any blood on the quilt!

Click on each picture for an enlargement.