Thanks for all of your kind input...I am new to machine piecing/quilting, as I learned to quilt by hand as little girl with my grandma...fast forward to 2-3 years ago, and I became interested in quilting again...happened upon a great local group through a lqs, and long story short the gals have encouraged me to give machine piecing/quilting a shot...so, these are 2 of my 1st tries...for someone who really is not in love with making hst, I seem to make a lot of them! :-D