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!~

~*~*~*~

Have you worked on any BOMs lately?