When am I finished?

It has been a busy week with lots of unquilt goings-on.  Much of it good (like getting a new singing job for the winter), and even a couple of really good things:
1) I finished putting together the top of my mother-in-law quilt (for lack of a better name)
2) My wife became a citizen of the U.S.!

My quilt, which is a twin sized log cabin in fall colors (14 inch blocks), still needs a border, but it feels done when I finish sewing all the blocks together.  The border will be a simple brown 4 inch strip, and that fabric has not arrived yet, so I have a day or so to kick myself for not lining up all my corners perfectly...

I am still trying to get a feel for where I will fall in that spectrum between sloppy and perfect.  How much imperfection am I comfortable with (obviously a lot if I'm ending my sentences with prepositions, right)?  On the final line of stitching in the blocks (two big blocks of 12 log cabins) I was about a quarter inch off, and so I pulled out the stitching and did it again.  Wouldn't you know it?  Somehow they still didn't quite line up.

After pulling stitches once, I just figured it was close enough...especially after I had pinned it and thought it lined up just right.  Is this a feed dog issue?  I know they all lined up when I pinned them and again the second time when I didn't pin.  Oh well, I am not sure how many times you can restitch before the fabric starts to get damaged, so I felt like I had better stop.

In other news, I went with my wife, daughter, and a friend of ours to the Manhattan Court House and sat around for a good hour waiting for the swearing in of 170 new U.S. citizens from 50 different countries this morning.  It was much less ceremonial and inspiring than expected.  I expected teary-eyed folks with their hands over their hearts and lots of oak paneling and a big American flag.  None of that- just a big modern hotel meeting room looking space with a judge reading a canned speech about the benefits of being an American.  They did swear allegiance with hand over heart...OK, maybe my experience was softened a bit because I was holding our baby thru much of it, trying to keep her from crying as the judge read his message (if you just take one step closer to the mic, we could ALL hear you).  In the end, it was an amazing experience, and I am sure that there were many tears and proudly-beaming people.  I was just a little preoccupied.

Hope my fabric arrives tomorrow...