Rainbow Scrap Challenge: March block

My goals are getting checked off one by one. Yesterday, I finished the top-stitching and embellishing for March's purple plus yellow block for

Here's my completed block:

I went back and forth about what to use for the "lights" hanging from the umbrella. I considered some star-shaped buttons, but they didn't have enough contrast. Then I thought about some star-shaped hot-fix nailheads I had, and there were plenty of those. They gave the block a nice little sparkle, and so I used those. The block is completely top-stitched and ready for inclusion in the completed quilt. These are the blocks I have so far:

These blocks are from Amy Bradley's "Campers" pattern. I'm changing them just slightly by adding a cat to each one.

After that I got to work quilting My Vintage Kitchen. This was a free BOM from Jennifer Reynolds at Jenny of Elefantz. The pattern is no longer free, but it is for sale in Jenny's Craftsy shop. 

Mine is slightly adapted. I switched out the center block since I didn't care for the original. 

The embroidered blocks are quilted just by stitching around the edges of the embroidery motifs with a clear monofilament thread. I like the little poof it gives them. "Poof" is a technical quilting term, so try to keep up.

Then I used red thread and did some straight line stitching in the blue sashings and around the red polka dot border. The "home ec" ladies are stitched around the edges of their bodies and some of the items in the fabric. Sometimes I think it's best to just follow the design of the fabric.

The quilting was just shy of being finished when I needed to quit for the day yesterday afternoon. I finished it up this morning, then trimmed it, and sewed the binding on by machine. I'm using the same blue fabric from the sashing.

And now all it needs is hand-stitching, and this one will be finished. It's 13-1/2 inches by 22 inches, and so I expect I can do that in one sitting...meaning, right now. 

We had quite a wind storm here last night with hurricane force winds on the Oregon coast 60 miles away.

You can see some video of the wind and surf if you click right here. The sky seemed as if it might brighten up a little this morning, and there were patches of blue. It's starting to darken again now as I write this, and so possibly we were in the eye of the storm this morning. In any case, I expect plenty of debris is littering the roads. It's a good day to stay home and sew, and that's exactly what I'm going to do.