BOMs Away - Heart & Home

Welcome to the Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

We'd love to see the BOM you're working on lately.

This week's link-up is at the bottom of the post.

First, here is the BOM work I did for this week - two of the Heart & Home house blocks. It's amazing how fast things go together when all the pieces are already cut out! 

They get applique features along the larger background side, but I don't think the kits had enough of the fabrics for them, so I'm doing all the piecing first. If I need to supplement from my stash, I want to make sure I use scraps that have enough to balance it out around the quilt.  I do just love the little feature fabrics that came in the kits, like the quilt shop sign and window quilt:
 

I hope you had a nice Easter! I did - which is why this post is much later than I normally put it up. We had a great time doing a "formal" dinner with Devon's last roommate visiting us - turned the Quilting Parlor back into a dining room, even.  ;D   The best part was eating on Scott's great-grandmother's china. We'd never done that before.  And dorky me - I was so busy cooking and orchestrating that I didn't take any pictures! So messed up!  Well, here's the table at the moment. . . proof that it can exist in a normal state - until the next quilt needs to be cut out, anyway.

This coming weekend will be fun, too, as Devon and Marissa and I are excitedly looking forward to testing for our yellow belt on Saturday. We were so thrilled the night we came home with all our instructor strips indicating we were allowed to do the next testing!

We all started studying Taekwondo together at the end of February.  It came from me feeling like I'd really dropped the ball sending the older two girls off to college without making sure they learned good self-defense or martial arts skills, so I put my foot down with Marissa (sophomore in high school) and said she had to do it. I decided I wasn't going to make her do something I wasn't willing to do, and that it would be a good way for me to improve my health and fight Lupus stuff. And then, right at that moment in time Devon needed to move back home, and she's so athletic, I knew she'd love doing it with us.  I never imagined Marissa and I would actually fall in love with it! It's totally a family sport, and unless you happen into a jerk instructor, it's all about respect at the dojang and at home, conditioning, and protecting yourself and others, not about being a "Toughy." I wish so much that I had realized the great value available and put us in it as a family years ago.

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So, before I bury myself back into archive notes analysis for my thesis, I'll ask:

Did you manage to get any BOM work done this holiday week?

:D

 

 

 

BOMs Away Monday - Ruffled Roses

Welcome to the Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

We'd love to see the BOM you're working on lately.

This week's link-up is at the bottom of the post.

Lots of sewing today! I was bad and completely ignored the taxes. But it sure was nice to get some visible progress on Ruffled Roses again!

Sewed 12 border seams to get the 4-patch on-point border floated onto the quilt and finish the month 5 work. So it went from this:

 

to this:

And I did all the month 6 sewing since everything is all cut out now.  Three more swag blocks:

 

 

 

 

 

And 4 of the basket blocks:

My back is unhappy after so much sitting - even with the up-and-down for pressing, but it's nice to have my piecing machine back from the shop and working happily again.  I really thought I'd get a call that it was beyond fixing, but $50.00 is all it took.  I'm a happy woman.  :D

So how about you? Did you get any work done on your BOM type projects lately?

BOMs Away - Kelly's "Strolling the Block"

Welcome to the Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

We'd love to see the BOM you're working on lately.

This week's link-up is at the bottom of the post.

 

It's a Kelly week, so I pulled out her "Strolling the Block" quilt top and went to work on the embellishments for the next block.

June has a farm house on it, so I put lace curtains in the windows and embroidered a country blue-and-pink wreath on the door.  Had a calico kitty button and a Scotty dog button, so those went on as well.

I found a cow on some fabric - this is my first broderie perse foray. It was kind of tricky, but not too bad with all the back-basting applique I've been doing the past two years.

Too bad I didn't have some chickens on some fabric!  But I think the block turned out nice even without them.  

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So, how 'bout it?  Any progress on your BOM(s) lately?   :D

March Reports

Here is my March wrap-up:

Something Old/Something New -

This category of my goals took a big hit this month.  I did not learn how to beautifully repair the tiny nip I made in my double wedding ring quilt, so I didn't gain any new skills. I'll need to do that this month!

 

My something old - quilting still more rings in that quilt - went well for the first week or so of the month until my quilting foot broke.  Still haven't been able to get to the store down in the city for a new one, so that's on a standstill at the moment. 

 

My April something old will be getting the quilting going again on this quilt, and making labels for both of my Dragonfly Party quilts before they need to go off for the various shows that they'll be in this year!   My something new - - - learning how to repair that snip in a gorgeous way. . .

 

Thanks to Lynne for coordinating this link-up!

 

 

NewFO Report for March

[here is the link to this party]

 

Whoa!!  My normal piecing machine is still broken and waiting to be taken to the shop, so the first half of the month I spent any non-DWR time washing/pressing stuff and cutting out the pieces from long-untouched kits in my storage. I got three of them processed!!

 

We have "Simply Fun," a batik set that's going to be a pretty queen size quilt one day, that I bought back in 2008:

 

 

 

I always - ALWAYS - have at least one young feline visitor when working at this table. Also, these are all kits from storage that get initial processing, then they are carefully boxed up with the pattern and notes to be re-stored for future sewing attention.

 

 

 

 

 

"Sunshine" was also cut out- another bed-sized quilt.  I loved working with the spring-like colors, and it came in a super cool fabric tote bag that makes for great continued storage:

 

 

 

 

 

"Anna's Mountains" will be a nice throw quilt some time - I do love toile prints:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And!!!  Something brand new - a couple of months ago I won Emily's "Boomerang" pattern from her blog giveaway away at Crazy Old Ladies Quilt, and I've been really wanting to work it up. I didn't have any fabric on hand for the background, so I had to get that, and bought several fat quarters to use with it. I filled out the requirements from my stash and got everything cut out despite all the "help" from the kittens.

 

 

 

Such sweeties "helping" with the cutting out of the background fabric. They made sure nothing blew away on me.  ;D

 

 

 

 

And then I found out my cousin's daughter is pregnant with a boy. I really wanted to make her a quilt, so I shopped my stash again to make another quilt from the same Boomerang pattern. I loved the idea of using some of my hot-air balloon fabric for the backing, and found a great blue for background fabric, then pulled several quarters and scraps that coordinated with the colors of the backing. I had broken down my quilting machine to piece one of my BOMs together, so I went ahead and pieced the Boomerang baby quilt.

 

 

 

 It made such a nice cheery quilt top, and I love the pattern in this dark background as well as the white that captured my fancy in the first place.  I got the top sandwiched, so this is ready to go as soon as I can quilt again.

 

 

 

Lots of NewFOs added to the list between the stale kits and the new pattern!! Thank you to Barbara for hosting this fun link-up every month. I love it.

 

 

 

 

 

Let's Book It!  Report - 
 

[Here is the link for this party]

 

Still deep in thesis work - two or three weeks left of intense archive digging - so my book attention remains limited to my Affairs of the Heart work. But I do love this project despite the trickiness sometimes of looking at fine hand-applique detail on the black background.  I made some decent progress on block 6. I have these 3 out of the 28 tricky little pieces left to stitch, then I can do the accent embroidery:

 

 

 

Thanks to Sharon for coordinating this link up! It keeps me forging ahead on this long term project that would otherwise be easily set aside indefinitely!

 

 

 

Welcome to the Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

We'd love to see the BOM you're working on lately.

This week's link-up is at the bottom of the post.

5th Sunday - usually a day that I pick one of the BOMs scheduled on whichever-Sunday-of-the-month that floats my boat that morning, but today I picked up a kiddo from the airport (returning from spring break) and then we road-tripped the other direction to our favorite movie theater for a family outing. No sewing! 

But just so you have something nice to look at: My little buddies, Navarre and Isabeau keep me company any time I'm working at the cutting table. Have to be careful that they don't walk by or try to grab the rotary cutter when it's in use! (Yes, it freaks me out quite a bit sometimes when they get close to it!) Now, if they'd always sit sweet and out of the way like this. . .    ;D

Hopefully someone else out there got some BOM work done this week!

BOMs Away - Flimsy Alert! Holiday Tidings

Welcome to the Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

We'd love to see the BOM you're working on lately.

This week's link-up is at the bottom of the post.

Hey!  I just couldn't stand to not get this BOM finished this month, so I broke down my quilting machine to work for piecing again (plus, my spring-action quilting foot died after 4 years of use, so I can't work on my wedding ring quilting).  And Voila!

Holiday Tidings

78" x 90"

 

A nice queen size top that will be quilted who-knows-when, but at least this BOM set that's been idle since Feb 2000 is now all sewn up.  :D 

That makes me happy. And since I haven't been able to do so in forever, I'll be linking this up at Sarah's "Whoop! Whoop!" Party on Friday. And next month's 4th Sunday will bring a brand new BOM set into the work mix.  More happiness!

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Have you done any work on your BOM(s) lately?

 

 

 

BOMs Away - A new one. :)

Welcome to the Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

We'd love to see the BOM you're working on lately.

This week's link-up is at the bottom of the post.

Since I finished "Hello, Moon!" last month, I got to pull out a new BOM today to fill in the 3rd-Sunday slot. This one is "Heart & Home," which I apparently received through part of 2010. (Not sure why this photo is posting overly-pink.)

Since I still don't have a machine to piece with, I opened all the sets, washed and dried the fabrics, and ironed them all. . .

 

This one included a sheet of Spoonflower-type specialty pieces for the house blocks. Love the cats and the "Cross My Heart Quilt Shop" sign!

 

 

I got all the pieces cut out for the first two sets, as well as the rest of the pieces from those given fabrics for the other sets. So, there's not many fabrics left to cut for the last three sets.  This BOM only has 5 block sets, and then the finishing kit makes up the 6th set. Looking forward to a short-term BOM!

 

 

Oh, and during the week's bits of TV time, I got the stems for two of the yellow "Ruffled Roses" cornerstones stitched down and back-basted scraps on for the next round of elements:

 

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Hope you've had time to make a little progress on your BOM!