learned my lesson

I've been working on an antique looking lap quilt for some time, the piecing went together quickly, but only because I didn't trim the excess fabric after I added the next row. When I started quilting, the straight lines looked great, but the free motion daisy design just kept looking awful, I had little control over the stitch length, the quilt kept refusing to move. I changed the needle, re-threaded the machine, took it in to the dealer to be cleaned and oiled, attempted to put wax paper/Pam spray on the back for more glide... nothing worked. Will and I spent over a week picking every stupid flower out, because by the time I gave up I had tried to quilt 20 flowers. They looked awful. After letting the quilt sit for a week or so, I gave it another go today. This time I quilted little leaves and spirals in the black open spaces and was successful for the most part. 

Then it hit me, my own laziness in not trimming led to all that extra work. The poor machine was quilting through, not 3 layers, but in some blocks, 5-6 layers of fabric. No wonder it was struggling and skipping stitches and refusing to move over the seams. I can't take it apart, but I will never, never sew another seam on a paper pieced block without trimming to 1/4 " again!