A Rant and a Rave

WARNING - seriously disturbed quilter about to GO OFF!
I've been wrestling ALL DAY trying to quilt The Rebel, and I have 3 squares done to show for it. Three. The entire rest of the time I've been fighting my sewing machine trying to figure out WHY the thread breaks every 4 minutes!!! (see previous problem with the Bunco dice appliques....) What gives? I got out the book and did everything it says to do, and I did everything I could think of. New needle. Re-thread (no lie, did that about 30 times!!!) different thread. Adjust tension/foot pressure/speed. I'm so ready to throw something! I could just scream, I'm so frustrated. WHAT could possibly be going on that suddenly I can't quilt? This is free-motion straight line quilting I'm doing on this, more or less kind of following the lines of the block but no, it's not in the ditch or 1/4 inch. There's one 4 inch line of stitching on one block that I've picked out SIX times because the thread broke in the middle every stinkin' time. Not even over a cross seam, just right in the middle of a perfectly flat piece of fabric. Now that I've decided that obviously my Janome is sick and needs to see a doctor that makes me even madder because the Janome is only a few months old and the Janome Doc is 75 miles away!! Have I mentioned I hate hate hate making that drive and it's time consuming and expensive? I need to scream and throw something REAL BAD. I know, "temper temper.........." and yes, I'm in one for sure! Maybe the underlying reason for the tantrum is that I didn't go to the quilt show after all. DDIL's mom and aunt are both sick, and 80% of my reason for wanting to go was to spend time with them. DDIL isn't too into quilting so I didn't drag her along, and I'll get to see them both next weekend at DGS's first birthday party. Geez, another 1 year old grandson! Since I was home I made myself a bright summery new purse:

The stripes are pieced and I put in my first purse zipper! Whoo-hoo for me! I'm so tickled with that. It has problems, to be sure, but it zips and everything! LOL - it's also loaded with pockets, inside and out. The outside has 3 pockets on each side, of varying sizes. Sunglasses, cell phone, pens - see the pens sticking out of their pocket above? I design my purses to be the way I want them, and I want pockets.

And wonder of wonders, I even got the strips to match along the zipper - that was amazing, can't believe I did that. And the stupid sewing machine didn't give me any grief on that!! I really think it's The Rebel - it hates me.
Ahhh, flowers. I still don't have much of a yard or garden, but I do have some bloomers and these are amazing - they're plain old 4 o'clocks, only they're not plain, for sure:

There's every conceivable combination of pink, yellow and white all mixed up in the same flower. They look like clowns! Or like a 3 year old painted them. No two are the same even on the same branch - it's so fun to see so many odd looking flowers all together.

Well, I'm still pretty hot so I guess I had better go eat some ice cream and try to calm down. It might take 2 bowls of ice cream in this heat!
I hope you're having a better sew day than I am -- Happy Sunday!