a special request quilt

Sometimes people ask me why I don't make quilts and sell them.  This is a perfect example.  I was asked to make this quilt on November 21 by a friend for a little boy who is 9 and loves the Disney movie Cars.  It took me a while to find the Cars fabric.  I guess it isn't popular anymore, so had to special order it online and then found some in the quilt shop.  So, that was my first excuse.  Then, vacation was over and finals came around and things got busy and then vacation came again and I got a new embroidery machine and I was having fun playing and this was put on the back burner.  I kept thinking of how I really needed to start working on it, but something else would always come up and be more interesting.

Finally, 7 weeks after being asked, I sewed the top together.  It only took about 3 hours so far from finding fabrics to cutting and sewing the top together.  Now I need to quilt and bind.  If I had a paying customer, I'm not sure they would have waited 7 weeks for a quilt.  I'm lucky I have friends who are patient.

I have one quilt on the machine right now and the needle has broken on me twice.  I guess the machine and the design aren't getting along very well.  It keeps getting stuck with the needle down and the machine keeps trying to move.  It's broken in the same spot twice, so maybe I should go babysit the machine.  It's a bummer because it is a feather pattern that I like a lot, but I can't have a pattern that breaks my needle every time I use it.  I may have to play around with some of the settings on the robot to get it to lift the needle faster, but I've forgotten a lot about how to do those things, which means research.  It's a good thing this quilt is almost done.  I'm not sure why the machine started doing this at the end of the pattern, maybe the quilt is on too tight?