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 2009. (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!

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.

I'm late posting this week!  You won't blame me, though - Saturday morning we woke up to 8" of snow covering the lawn, and yesterday (my BOM day) the temperature quickly rose to 72F degrees with gorgeous skies!!!  Naturally, I spent much of the day outside with my family since it was a one-day weather treat.  :D  Why no pictures???  (gotta fix that next time!)

My piecing machine is out of commission for at least a couple of weeks - it is time for its tune-up visit to start with, but last weekend it refused to raise its feed dogs back up, so there's that issue as well. I won't have time to drive it down to the city until I've finished going through the Berkeley archives for my thesis work, so I'm limited to non-machine-piecing quilting work for the next few weeks. (not a difficult task at all with my stash of UFOs and NETYs!)

So while it was a bummer that I couldn't bring my Ruffled Roses center further along, I spent several hours prepping ALL the rest of the work for this quilt except for the floater mini-borders. It's a pain to pull out all 16 fabrics and cut individually from them every single month, and since I have all the months' directions, I streamlined that task for future sewing:

The 4-patch border's floaters are "math'ed-up" and ready to go:

All the fabrics are cut and pinned for the gazillion HSTs to make the 24 baskets and I cut out all the setting triangles for the basket border. I also cut out the set of swag pieces that I'd somehow overlooked last month:

Oh - I always keep any plastic baggies and little boxes that BOMs or fabric orders arrive in. The boxes I use to re-shelf projects that I get prepped for further work later on, and the baggies I use for times like this to keep pieces organized in sets:

And then I cut all the extra little pieces for basket bases (there are a lot more than it looks like in these stacks - took forever):

I also cut the remaining 8 applique cornerstones and traced the designs on their backs:

And during the evening show I even got one of them back-basted for the first element (stems):

I must have been absorbed in the show more than usual, because normally I have more handwork to show for that much time.  ;D

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So how about you? Have you done any work on your BOM or other interval work lately?

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.

I really enjoy pulling out a Kelly project on the first Sundays. Today I put the embellishments on her May house: Ribbons for the pole, some button flowers and a ladybug and bee, and some embroidered flowers in the door basket. I love her stone pathway fabric. I did wish there were more rose buttons, but that's ok.

 

 

 

 

The May Pole ribbons will be tacked down prettily after it's all quilted - who wants to try quilting that pole with them already sewn into place?? (not me!)  ;D

 

I had the cutest little "helper." Isabeau painstakingly snugged her way into the cave as I was working. She only batted at the backside for 5 minutes or so before falling asleep finally.

 

 

 

 

Uh.... yes.... I stayed in my jammies until lunchtime today!

 

 

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So how about you? Have you done any work on your BOM or other interval work lately?