August Wrap-Up and September Goal Post

August Accomplishments:

Priority Finish:

"Semper Fi - Combass" 

This is a 70" x 70" original design that I made for my now son-in-law to mark his successful completion of the Marine Corps Basic Training. It is the longest and hardest military basic training in the world, and after watching the 13-week curriculum chart as they went through the program, I'm just sayin, Marines have every right to brag about their accomplishment! Still, as a whole, they are super cool. Most come out also learning to be gentlemanly, and they love their moms (and mother-in-laws)! This photo was taken before the binding was completely stitched down, but it's my favorite. Hoping to have a photo op with the Marine himself sometime in the next few months!

Secret Finishes: One complete and one flimsy.

UFO Finishes:

"Tweedle Dum" (16" x 16") from the Sea Breeze set of McKenna Ryan minis. It's going to look neat to have all 9 finished in a few months, lining the long basement wall. This is the 5th one to get hung. I had some serious thread issues with this one. My machine DESPISES the 
monofilament threads and pitched a fit that broke some of the bobbin-winding mechanism. You can still make it work, but I'll have to take it in to the shop to fix it back to normal. I was disgusted enough that I didn't tear out the 4 lines with tension issues. But now it's happily hanging on the wall next to "Tweedle Dee"!

This is one of my Q3 Finish Along pieces (My goal post link)

Community Sewing:

I finished framing all the blocks for the quilt I'm making to donate to the Cinderella House (a place of refuge for rescued women/girls that were caught in the human trafficking horror).

NETY pull-out:
(This is how I begin to incorporate Never Even Touched Yet items on my monster list of long-ago purchases into my work cycles)

Pick-A-B #3 - I actually pulled this out in July. Got all the fabrics washed, but I'm only about halfway finished ironing them. Hopefully I'll get them finished up this month and cut them out to put it away kitted. No pics of this - the fabrics are white, red, turquoise, pink based, with some florals in there. There will be white blocks that I'll do some red-work stitching on. Things like this fun teapot.

 

September Attention:

(The way I work is not for everyone. It is a cyclical process evolved from the need for variety while producing regular finishes. I'm on a mission to honor the money spent on kits and fabric in earlier years, as well as the interests and tastes of my younger self by finishing every squirreled-away project I found during a serious hunt-and-list session a couple years ago. I also want to allow myself to explore some new interests and trends, though. To those ends, I work best with goal oriented matrices that give me some self-organization on a variety of projects, with something marked as the priority work for a finish. Lists with items meant to be checked off as totally complete in a finite period of time stifle me. So don't look at my list of "goals" as something intended to have everything absolutely completed in a month. That would be amazingly stressful!)


















Complete Finish: "Be Attitudes" -  This is my chosen project for ALYF. It is my cousin's quilt top that I'm finishing as a wedding gift for her nephew.

Secret Finishes: The next 3 projects, and throw in some pot holders


Priority Quilting:  "Devon & Kyle United 2015" - I have only this much hand applique to do, then I can develop and mark the quilting plan and get this baby going at the FMQ station!!!

Piecing Station:  Get Little Miss overhauled so she can start working.

Community Service: Get the Cinderella House quilt to the finished Flimsy stage.

UFO work:  Finish "The Clampetts" from the Sea Breeze mini set."Be Attitudes" (above) is also a UFO! Bonus!  :D

Evening Handwork Station:  It would be nice to put a hanging sleeve on my quilt that Grandma made for my 16th birthday so I can hang that for a while. And please - PLEASE do the labels for "25th, Baby!," "Semper Fi - Combass," "Kelly's Joseph Smith 2," "A Laurel Burch Christmas," "Patriots in Petticoats," and guide label making for Heather's dragon quilt and Marissa's community service quilt. Maybe I can get these tasks moving finally now that I've finished all that hand work on the kids' wedding quilt.

BOMs:
Carry on the once-weekly attention to the projects on the Roll. Finish the center quilting for Kelly's; do 1.5 to 2 months of work on "Star Crazy"; proces block 4 the same way I did block 3 for "Wind in the Whiskers"; adapt the next row of "Americana" to incorporate Scott's desert BDUs and work environment.

NETY Pull-Out:
Go exploring the deep storage and pull out whatever catches my fancy.  :)  And finish pressing the last NETY's fabrics, eh? 

BOMs Away - 5th Sunday = Bonus Fun with Kelly's "Be Attitudes"

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.

[Is anybody else suddenly having a really difficult time getting photos uploaded for your blog?]

Hi, everyone! Did you enjoy having a 5th weekend for your monthly goals? I sure did. I used it to pull out one of the last of Kelly's quilt projects that I rescued for her when she died. She'd finished the whole top of the "Be Attitudes" BOM. I think it'll make a really nice wedding gift for a nephew of hers that I know she would have made a quilt for. He's done a lot to take care of my aunt (Kelly's mom), so he certainly deserves this. I know the couple with value her quilt, and they're quite religious, so a play on beatitudes will be up their alley.

I'm just in awe of Kelly's beautiful hand worked blanket stitching. She had a wonderful sense of scale for it, and the stitches are more regular than my machine blanket stitching ever turns out. 

But like her "Strolling the Block" top, I saw the signs that she felt her time was short and was racing to finish things. For example, the disregard for wandering seam allowances wasn't like her (I'm sure she ironed it from the front in a hurry). I got them all pressed down in proper order so ditch work would turn out nicely.

And here you can see on this top, again, the reason why you just DO NOT want to use the oft-promoted shortcut of simply laying an appropriately-wide strip of fabric down as you're sewing to add border, and then trimming off the end point. Always - ALWAYS - measure your quilt, then measure out the length of your border strips, and pin them on before sewing them to your quilt. Otherwise, you get these nasty waves on your borders: 

I'm going to try out a couple of fiddly methods that people have shared for taming these waves. The ones on this quilt are only about half or a third as bad as the "Strolling" waves were.

I sandwiched this top with backing from my stash and a double layer of a Hobb's Tuscany silk batting I'd purchased to try out. It was supposedly delicately washable, but I wasn't happy at all with the lacing effect that happened. You know what, though? Doubled over, it is marvelous! The hand on this is so nice, I know I'll buy a couple of queens next time I can catch it on sale so I can use it doubled on a quilt for myself. It's probably too dark of a cream, though, for a pure white-based top. Bummer, because the feel of it would be perfect for my Modernology top! Too bad it doesn't come bleached. . . 

I got some of the border ditchwork finished, but have to wait on threads for the other colors. My machine dislikes the colorless thread even more than I do, so apparently I can't use it. Doesn't seem to matter which brand I try. In fact, the bobbin winder is partly broken now from the hissy fit the machine threw about that thread last week when I was working on one of my McKenna Ryan minis. I can still make the winder work, but it needs to go into the shop to get 100% performance back. (It no longer moves up and down on its own to keep the thread winding on the entire height of the bobbin, so you have to use a pointer thingy to "wave" the thread height as it's winding.)

I did get half of the black-work done. And then I enjoyed some good movie time with Devon this afternoon to get those tails tied-and-tucked on all those separated letters! Check out that "nice" nest of tails on the January block: 

I worked for longer stretches than I normally do - trying to get this quilted up in time for the reception. There are a couple places where my attention wandered and I got some wobbles, like here on the bunny's ear.  :( 

But I was particularly happy with the detail work in other spots - like around the ant's legs. . . 

. . . And, Boy! Did I nail the dad's glasses that Kelly stitched on! Not a sign of my quilting stitches on top of her super-fine-line hand stitches. I really debated tackling those, so I'm glad they turned out so perfectly.  :)

Don't you love the blushy cheeks Kelly painted on? Wish I knew what she used for that. I really like the effect on this style of quilt. She did it on all the people in the quilt.

Going to have fun finishing this one up for her!~

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Have you worked on any BOMs lately?

BOMs Away - Oops!!

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.

Gosh, guys! I'm sorry this is so late! While I was working on this post Sunday night, my laptop battery ran down, and I didn't move to the room with its cords because I was talking with Heather. She came down to visit for the weekend since it was my birthday and Scott's and my anniversary. He's so silly, we'll always have humor in this marriage.  :D

And check out this fun cake Devon commissioned from a fellow Taekwondo student! She knew she wanted our cat playing with his bead snake on a quilt for it, and Sherri made the quilt out of the belt colors we've already passed, complete with one block made of my miniature belts with tiny stitch lines in them! (I'm a brown belt right now.)

 I loved it!

Here's the BOM work I finished this week on both "Americana" and "Wind in the Whiskers":

The birdhouse row, which will get birds and doorways appliqued on, and probably some lyrics backstitched into the background.

And Block 3, which is so intertwined with the tree that overarches 5 blocks, that I only assembled the individual animal elements and left the other pieces unattached after I cut them out. 

Hope you're enjoying your families and friends, too!

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Have you finished any BOM work recently?

BOMs Away - New Seasons for All the Kids, Americana & 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.

Hey there. It's a time of big changes for the family.

We moved Heather into her apartment up in Denver. . . 

. . . and she is matriculated into medical school now. Long journey to get this far, long journey more.

It's a fun campus. 

Heather and the Giant Peach

I loved this wall art - there was something so captivating about the different shoeprints, interspersed with roller blades, ice skates, bike treads, a soccer ball print, children's prints. It was all done by the class of 2006. I thought it was brilliant.

And even bigger news, she's now engaged to this young man! They're being super nice to us, though, and giving us two years to recover from this spring's wedding.

Other kids: 

Devon and Kyle bought their first car - exciting!

And we had fun with Marissa's senior portraits shoot. School starts back up for her this Wednesday. Can't believe the baby of the family is at this point!  

So - around all this, I did get some BOM work done this week. I sewed up row 2 of the Americana QAL:

I was stumped for the longest time trying to find a fabric to use for the background on this one. But then I caught sight of the tub in the back corner where I've kept a bunch of Scott's older uniforms, so I harvested one of the retired BDUs shirts. 

The value was too dark for the hearts fabrics, so I just edged those with a beige plaid fat quarter I had. I also appliqued them onto a single-piece background instead of piecing the background around the hearts since that stuff is like working with duck cloth canvas. I really love how it turned out!

I also pulled Kelly's quilt back out and finished the free-motion work on the Oct-Nov-Dec row that I was working on when we dropped everything to drive to Nebraska. Getting really close to the finish on this one!

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Hope you were able to find time for some BOM work.

BOMs Away - Star Crazy

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.

Thank you very much to everyone who sent notes regarding my mother in law. She was very fortunate, and is making a really fabulous recovery from her stroke. Her face is no longer sagging, her speech sounds clear again, and she walks without too much difficulty with the aid of a walker to help her balance. We spent a few days at their home, helping Dad and installing several non-slip grips here and there for her. 

We're back at our own home now, and I enjoyed having some down time with my machine for a little BOM sewing. I did the Month 4 blocks:

Also stitched up the HSTs for Month 5 and got those cut out and de-papered while Devon and I watched "The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel." I enjoy those films.  :)

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How about you? Do you have any work on BOMs to share?

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.

Hi there. Not much BOM work accomplished - I was finishing the orange peels in the sashing of the bottom row of Kelly's "Strolling the Block" quilt when we got word that Scott's mom had a stroke. So I dropped the quilting before I started on the blocks themselves, and we'll be driving out there as soon as his commander authorizes emergency leave. She's in the hospital in unknown condition, and his dad is fairly newly blind, so he needs a lot of help and support at the moment.

Hope things are better for you.

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Did you work on your BOMs?