surprising a friend with a quilt

In my group of twelve friends, we have established a tradition of giving a quilt when the  person turns 60. We met last night for dinner at a local restaurant and to make the presentation to the recipient. The funny thing is that we sent a fake email to the friend receiving the quilt to tell her we were meeting to celebrate another friend's birthday. She totally fell for it because the 2nd friend now lives in NFL and was here for a visit. It is so much fun to surprise someone.We used reds and greens because Debbie's birthday is in December.

We each made several blocks ahead of time and the quilt was put together, quilted and bound within a few days.
I just put an hour and a half into some free motion play on the 3 bookmarks. Am I crazy? I had to go really slowly because the thread, especially the metallic, wanted to break. I had the most luck with a titanium needle.

For a really good lesson on threads and needles used in free motion work,  read this blog post at Marveles Art studios. She really covers a lot of thread information. Her work is also gorgeous!