August NewFO's Report - "Flight Commander" & "25th, Baby!"

Love Barbara's NewFO parties each month, and they're really helping me get these kits pulled out of stone-cold status and on their way to becoming quilts before my youngest is out of high school.  ;D  Lots of other fun projects emerging, so take a fun breakfast stroll through the other links.

My poor husband was moved into the world's dreariest office a couple weeks ago (I just saw it last week), so I threw together this wall quilt top. 

Need to stitch down the propellers and then quilt this baby so it can cheer up one spot. I wanted to make a subtle nod to the flight orientation of the Air Force as well as include some understated patriotism, thus the borrowing of the popular steampunk block and the color selection from the scrap box. 

Going to have fun with some terrain patterning for the fmq.

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But the BIG NewFO is one of the sets of fabric from my birthday shopping trip. My actual Birthday Bash set is only washed and pressed (and augmented from stash), ready for some circle play for next month. But I *really* want to completely finish the king size double wedding ring quilt to be on our bed for our 25th Anniversary next August, which means that project has to start moving now.

 Washed and pressed all the fabrics; worked up my color scheme in EQ so I could print it out to keep track as I work (numbered all 199 melons), and then arduously cut out the controlled-scrappy sets for what I called the "starbursts." 

I"m alternating greens and plummish ones, which each use about 5 different fabrics to make up those yardages. Some are the new, some were in stash. It was kinda fun to mix and match them so I'd have a good spread over the whole quilt.

Best use of a concert grand piano, eh?  ;D  This project is not getting boxed-and-shelved, but will run in the background for 2 or 3 months. So, to protect it from feline disturbances, I've covered the grid with my largest acryllic quilting scribble panel. 

But this organization by starbursts is not what is needed for the actual sewing of the arcs. So I raided the "This Paper Still Has One Good Side" printing pile and our over-abundant supply of staples and made 20 pouches to tuck pieces in by arc. They fit nicely in this basket with some stacks of the mix of creams that fill in the mid-arcs between the starbusts. At least *those* could be pure randomness! I'll fill the pouches from the piano 20 arcs at a time, and hopefully they'll all be cleared off by Thanksgiving.

Next I cut all the connector pieces. The green starbursts will have the satin-dotted whites; the others will have the slightly-sparkly blue. When I was all finished, it occurred to me that I should have cut the whites from my wedding dress - that would have been cool!  Oh well, back to my back-burner plan to do something wall-quilt out of the dress ala Cindy Needham.

Then there were all the centers and melons to be cut. This is Kona Primrose. I couldn't decide in the store whether I wanted a solid background or the pretty pink blender that was vying with it. I bought both. I needed about the same yardage for the background as I did for the backing, so I decided the pair would work out either way. When I got all the florals together at home for the arcs, I liked the group much better on the solids - especially with the satin dots and sparkles on the connector fabrics. It'll all look very nice with the blender on the back when it's turned down on the bed.  :)

So, altogether I template-cut some 3,200 pieces in stacks of 4. That took all week!!  And gobbled up all my sewing time, so no machine work happened at all.  

I would highly recommend buying a thick template set for double wedding rings if you are going to make one of these quilts, even in just a sofa size. The set that came in a book I'd picked up at a yard sale years ago was FABULOUS - complete with little clingy-felt sticky dots to keep the fabric from sliding at the corners. With all those curves, it would have been way nasty working with cardstock or thin plastic templates. That's one purchase worth its money. Especially for a KING size! I really can't imagine doing that cutting job without these.

Oh, I decided not to go with the quick-curve ruler or paper piecing on this king size because the extra fabric necessary would have been prohibitive at this size. Big difference between 9 yards of background and 14 yards, eh?!

So, anyway, these are my WIPs right now, along with more hand quilting on Kelly's 1930s quilt during any evening TV times. That is slow going, but I'm getting better as I continue. Let's just say it's a good thing the border is such a busy print that can hide all my wobbles, or there'd be a GLARING difference between her work and mine.  ;D

Did you have any NewFO's this month?  :D 

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Linking up at

Barbara's NewFO

Lee's WIP

Esther's WOW