Ohio Star Blocks for Pauline's Birthday

My friend Bec contacted me a few weeks ago.  She was arranging a special birthday surprise for our mutual friend Pauline (my quilting guru).  The surprise is a collection of patchwork squares using purple and green - squares Pauline can then join and quilt.  The idea was to have Pauline's quilting buddies contribute 2 squares each.

I was delighted to be asked - and so here's my contribution:

(unfortunately my camera doesn't always capture colours well....)

These are Ohio Star blocks.  I was pretty sure the odds are good I'd be the only one who'd do Ohio Stars.  Bec email'd me photos of some of the other blocks friends had contributed, and yup... I'm the only one who did that kind of block - GOOD!

Happy Birthday, Pauline!

An Update on Matilda (my longarm)

I posted last week that my longarm became damaged when I was doing some ruler work (the ruler flipped up under the needle as it was coming down).

Ouch!

Part of the needle sticking out of the casing - I can't get it out!

As much as I tried, I couldn't pull the broken needle top out of the casing.  I took the machine to Howard (the dealer I bought it from) and he hasn't been able to get it out, either.  Looks like the casing unit will have to be replaced.  Fortunately the quote Howard gave me to do the repair isn't too awful (I was certainly imagining much worse), so now we just have to wait until the part comes in (probably being shipped from the US).