Please, Oh please...send me some easier quilts!

My back aches. My left hand is throbbing from the excess of ruler work. My neck needs a brace (and about 18 uninterrupted hours in bed-ha!). You get the picture. I am 14 hours into the 2nd Stars for a New Day miniature in 2 weeks. The end is joyfully in sight, which is good. The deadline for entering this into MQX is looming at 5 days away, and the client really wants/needs to have it done. Her's just happened to be the 2nd one I quilted by the random nature of it being on the bottom on the hanger. I don't want her to miss her MQX experience and debut because I was having technical glitches.
By technical, I mean for some reason, this is the quilt that just about would not allow me to quilt it. I did the 1st of these rather seam-heavy, double-batted quilts without so much as a broken thread. It was completely smooth sailing. Then, between the two mini-monsters, I stitched a lap quilt (albeit a pantograph), and had no issues with th stitching. It looks great. Then as soon as I started this quilt, it was as though the voodoo curse of the quilt was in place. The thread broke about 15 times in my first hour of stitching. This is immensely annoying to have to pick out the stitches in order to knot and burry every break! I got to practice all kinds of vulgarities and obscenities though while the kids were at school. Fun being able to vent one's frustration without having to softly mutter nice things in a growly voice. I asked plenty of great quilters for advice on this problem, but all indicators were that it had come out of timing. I couldn't sew right to left OR bottom to top, whatsoever. Freaky. But, off on another quilt sandwich, it sewed like a dream in any direction. More Freaky.

OK, so it is something about this particular quilt that is causing the problems. Maybe the thickness is slightly different/more than the 1st quilt. Or maybe the white-on-white fabric is part of it (more problems on this). Either way, I have to do customs, and I have 2 king sized ones next in line. My guess is it is a combination of thickness and thickness. The quilting on the center of the feathered star broke 4 times. There is a LOT of bulk here.

You can see from the pictures that I am getting it quited. I have slowed my stitching down to a practical crawl speed to avoid the breaks. It's annoying...there are times on straight sections that you just want to zoom. I have not done those 3-hour stars (between the feathers),and I am really dreading them. I must formulate a good plan for how to do them without to much screaming. You may also notice that I have stitched the sections of this quilt differently than the first quilt. It's not been easy, because I like certain motifs. I have not been able to do the cross-hatching whatsoever on this quilt, which frustrates me. It is so lovely and versatile. Hopefully it will be equally as impressive as the other quilt. Nobody wants to think that they got the less desireable quilt. And hopefully I meet the Tuesday deadline!

Oh gosh golly... I just spoke with the owner of the quilt. She's so sweet to call, but she was concerned that the quilt is getting my body & may sanity. I feel bad...The quilt is coming along lovely, rest assured. And I will make it through the process fine as well. I'd rather have a challenging day quilting a custom any day of the week than be stuck with only an endless pile of pantographs! I just don't want to do another miniature for a while :-) I love your quilt; your technique is amazing. Thanks for bringing the quilt, and thanks for caring.