BOMs Away - Happy New Year!

Welcome to the link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

Where we share what we're doing on a BOM-type project 

so they don't stall out in UFO-land!

(Linky at the bottom.)

Here we are with our first BOMs Away of the New Year. 

2018. Can you believe it?!

We're just having a casual day here at the house, so I actually did some BOM work while ticking off the final moments of the old year. 

Lots and lots of trunk parts and leafy pieces for four of the blocks on my Wind in the Whiskers:

Doesn't look like much when it's just pinned in a clump like that, but trust me - hours of work there! 

This was the first session working on this quilt since my start on it in October 2014 that I actually felt happy doing it - here's to hoping the bad ju-ju and pattern frustrations are completely in the past now, and it keeps moving forward freely.  :)   

I think that makes it supremely appropriate for the first-of-the-year link-up.  

Have you done any BOM-type work during the holidays?

~*~*~

Kate over at Katie Mae Quilts has joined me in hosting this meet-up,

and linking up from either end puts you on the party at both sides.

Whoop!! Whoop!! Whoop!! Once Upon a Time is Checked Off! 17 in 2017 is finished!

Yes!!  I just finished tying and tucking the last tails on the seals. . .

and the walrus sleigh block. . . 

Probably 5/6 of the applique stitching has been finished while doing the trapunto work. The remaining stitching will be simultaneous with the quilting. There are a couple embroidery tasks to happen after quilting, too.

And now that all the trapunto work and pre-quilting stitchery is finished on my "Once Upon a Star," that means I've successfully met my 17 in 2017 challenge!

And I can't tell you how much lift of burden I felt to have this stage completed on this project! It is what has held it back for quite a long time.


A quick recap for my challenge: I'd listed 17 UFOs that I wanted to advance a stage during this past year.  Of those, 4 were completely finished, 4 are ready to be finished on the longarm, and 4 are now flimsies. At least six of them would not have been touched at all this year were it not for this challenge. 

I also accomplished: 10 other finished quilts, 4 other flimsies, 5 other significant advances, and my first customer job (custom longarm quilting).

So I'm really looking forward to the 18 in 2018 challenge helping me get a lot more finishes that might otherwise stagnate! It's surprising how much that challenge helps, even when you just expect a step or two to be done instead of a finish. Between that and the 6 & 6 challenge letting new things in, it's going to be a fun year.

~*~*~ Linking at:

TGIFF at Kathy's this week
Sarah's Whoop Whoop Friday
Meredithe's 17 in 2017

Announcing "18 in 2018"

Multi-purpose post here. Firstly, I hope your holiday is going nicely!

Secondly, we're continuing this challenge again this year. Note that you can break the number among however few or many quilts you want.

And thirdly, I did zero BOM work this week with family here, so last week's BOMs Away link is still active if you have something to share.  :)  

It's official! With Meredithe's blessing, we'll be hosting "18 in 2018" here, so those of us who thrived on the 17 in 2017 can keep the push going. She and Anne have switched to 6 & 6 in 2018 for those who want to challenge themselves to old and new alike.  :)

Check out the 18 in 2018 organizing page for details and info on how to make that number work for you. You can link up your own listing post here or on that page.

[The challenge is not to finish 18 UFOS (unless you want to), 
but to do the work for 18 stages divided among however many quilts you designate.]

I hope you'll play and help spread the word. I'll be putting a button up in the sidebar that folks can grab.

Let's have another great year of advances!

18 in 2018 Working Posts 
(This link-up will stay open all year. It is where you link your initial listing post, and you can do that at any point in the year.)

An InLinkz Link-up

BOMs Away - Christmastime

Welcome to the link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

Where we share what we're doing on a BOM-type project 

so they don't stall out in UFO-land!

(Linky at the bottom.)

Hi! We are mostly geared into finishing our holiday bedecking and getting ready for out-of-town company here. It's a fun, busy time of year.

I did get bits of work advanced on this old Christmas BOM during the early mornings this week. About 2/3 of "Once Upon a Star" has now had its trapunto-applique stitching put in.

Although, the polar bears and whales all need the batting trimmed away and tails tied & tucked behind, like the penguins have had done. . . 

Hope you're having a good time these days - Any progress on BOM type projects happening for you?

~*~*~

Kate over at Katie Mae Quilts has joined me in hosting this meet-up,

and linking up from either end puts you on the party at both sides.

WIP'n along and Whoop'n it up

Woohoo!!!   This is #16 on my 17 in 2017 list, so I know now that I can check them all off by year's end.

Devon's quilt has quite a bit of quilting that was done on the domestic. There is a lot left, though, and much had to be done to prep it for the longarm. 

Something like 250 pins have been taken out of the blue area, all the hundreds of tails are tied and tucked, backing is squared, and spacers are sewn onto the three narrow sides (I anticipate wanting to turn this quilt for easier border work.) This is a large queen quilt.

I did all the marking yesterday on the Sapphire Stars Mystery quilt that I'm finishing as a special QOV for my father-in-law. I made the USAF stencil the old-school way by printing the right size onto cardstock and wielding an X-acto knife. Also cut the border elements out of a cereal box (some day I'll have star rulers for longarms, but for now it's old-school).  I got about 1/2 of the stabilizing done on the longarm before night's call. Hopefully this afternoon I can finish that up and start on some of the fun work.

And my early-morning attention is currently on puffins and penguins - they're maybe halfway finished getting their trapunto work.  :)   This FMQ work still happens at my domestic machine for two reasons: 1) I don't have nearly enough fine control yet with my longarm to do close-edge applique quilting with so many tiny details; 2) Quilting through multiple layers of fusible can be really tricky even without fine-control issues. I'll be waiting until I have a lot more experience with my longarm and its reaction to various threads, fabrics, and pop-up issues before putting any fusibles on it.

~*~*~
Linking to:

Lorna's Let's Bee Social, 

Sarah's Whoop, Whoop!

Meridithe's 17 in 2017

BOMs Away - Once Upon a Star; also Martha's Holiday Spin

Welcome to the link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

Where we share what we're doing on a BOM-type project 

so they don't stall out in UFO-land!

(Linky at the bottom.)

I've had a fun weekend of working on Christmas projects. For BOM work, I pulled out a McKenna Ryan project that I've only ever enjoyed working on. No problems with this one.  ;D

"Once Upon a Star" is getting trapunto work while I do all the stitching of the many-many fusible pieces, as well as of embroidery on the main elements before it will be quilted. Without that, the fusible applique just stays so flat and disappointing to me. Photographing this project is disappointing, too, because it's so much prettier in real life than I can get the camera to show. 

I've got the cute baby seal finished, and aren't those whiskers fabulous?

And I did the central scene with Santa and company. 

The star got stitched with a holographic silver thread - super pretty!! But it doesn't begin to show from the camera's point of view, so you can't see how terrific the effect is.

I've got the puffins ready to go for next time. Their 3-D stocking with its fish lives in a bag in my scissors drawer. This quilt will be entirely finished and on my wall the day after Thanksgiving next year!

And earlier in the week, I pulled a Christmas UFO out of the closet. It's not a BOM, but I was in the mood.  This one needed all of its border work. I got that finished up yesterday. It's queen size.

The colors are a little better in this indoor shot - lots of really great quilting potential in this one! 

I would like this to be a fun Christmas in July finish when I have more longarm templates to play around with.

~*~*~

Kate over at Katie Mae Quilts has joined me in hosting this meet-up,

and linking up from either end puts you on the party at both sides.

It's a Wrap! Heather's "Lloyd & Lola"

My first customer quilt on the longarm has been pure fun. This is Elizabeth Hartman's "Lloyd & Lola" pattern, pieced by Heather Woodland in linens with cotton on the blankets and lanterns. She did a remarkable job, too. Everything was nice and flat and easy to keep squared up. I was spoiled!

Getting a photo today is particularly tricky business with these strong winds! It took over a hundred shots to catch that one. Most of them look like this:

(Big Kudos to Pat for keeping it safely off of anything!)

Part of the fun of working on this quilt this past week is that Scott and I happened upon this cutie who was participating in old town Monument's Christmas weekend festivities:

I got to do custom work on this quilt. We went with Hobbs 80/20, as their climate is way too hot for anything more. (Thinking only of the quilting, I would choose wool or wool-over-80/20 for the prettiest fill, but practical concerns need to be considered as well.) 

 I used So Fine on the top (an ecru on the llama fur/legs, a light gray everywhere else), and Magna Glides in the bobbin (a silver gray and an ecru). This used 8 bobbins (L size). This wasn't my favorite top/bobbin mix, but my thread supplies are still growing. The different fibers demand quite a bit of tension fiddling.

Heather asked for the quilting to be masculine, because she's supposed to give it to her husband. So I used double horizontal lines spaced 3/4" apart for all of the background. For the most part, the channel locks made easy work of that, but I did use a long ruler to mark register lines when they needed to jump across the llamas.

The seams were all pressed open, ruling out true stitch-in-the-ditch work. Linen is remarkably accommodating, though, and for all the lantern globes and both llamas, I was able to do a super close echo line to stabilize, define, and give me a turn-around place for the line work. I'm not sure I would like the effect well enough on an all-cotton quilt. On the linen, the So Fine thread I was using just melted right in.

(You can see how it stands out more, like a decorative edge stitching, on the cottons in the neck and leg bands)

Llamas got freehand fur and face details. . .

Complete with hair-do's. 

Gotta have those!

Blankets got 1/4" echo lines for the strips and a freehand wavy line in the trim to offset all those straight lines in this quilt.

Legs got meandering vertical lines.

Lanterns got wavy outlines (I was thinking about the way some hanging lanterns have that accordion silhouette) and coordinating drops along the lower spans to set them off a bit more, to counter the lines - lines - lines, and to camouflage the seams in the background around them. Those seams really stood out before that detail work.

Then I just used a curved ruler to travel from top to top, like their weight was pulling down on a hanging wire, detouring at each one to put in the double teardrop accents.

Overall I'm quite pleased with how it turned out! I learned with this that linen is very much more stretchy than cotton, but it quilts pretty darn easily. Tension can be a bit of a bugger when you're changing back and forth from the linen to the cotton, so you have to watch that carefully. And llamas are terrific listeners when you're quilting them. I found myself talking out loud to them several times. . . Ha!

~*~*~

Linking to

TGIFF at Leanne's this week

Sarah's Whoop, Whoop Linkup

18 in 2018 and UFO Challenge 2018

Here’s my 2018 list of projects I want most to advance. It is doubling for Judy's UFO challenge and the 18 in 2018 challenge.

(There will be other projects worked on during the year, but these are the ones I do not want left behind any more.)

The first twelve, in no particular order, are slated for Judy’s monthly UFO Challenge:

FINISHED 1. Fancy Forest. This quilt is basted and loaded on zippers for the longarm. It will get full-custom quilting. I pieced the top from June to August of 2016, basted it November 2017.   <<First two stages of quilting finished in February, background finished first week of March. Binding finished Mar 28, 2018.>>

2. Coral Encounter. This flimsy needs to be quilted. I started it at a Judy Niemeyer workshop in February 2012, and finished it that August.

3. Quiet Rebellion on the Pond. This flimsy needs to be quilted.  I made it in August 2012, as a “my own way” approach to a guild challenge from December 2010.

4. Hearts for Kelly. This flimsy needs to be quilted. Everyone in our family contributed to this top in May 2010. We were making it quickly to send to Kelly when she had a stroke (44 years old, dealing with cardiomyopathy), but she died soon after the stroke. L I haven’t had the heart to finish it until now.

On the frame next 5. Devon’s Quilt. This quilt from 2016 was partially quilted on my domestic machine, and needs to be finished on the longarm. It stalled partly because of technique intimidation and because I had to sew Renaissance gear for 18 people. <<Mar UFO 2018.>>

6. Leaded Glass. This flimsy needs to be quilted. It was made at the Cabin Fever Retreat, March 2015.

7. Once Upon a Star. This flimsy with trapunto work needs its full-sheet quilting done. Most of the applique work was done and the flimsy put together in November 2012. It had been idle since 2010 at that point.

FINISHED 8. Mermaid Fantasy for Heather. Another flimsy with trapunto work that needs its full-sheet quilting. This was originally started in December 2008, I believe. The trapunto work was done in November 2017.   <<Number drawn for March. Completely finished Mar 30, 2018.>>

9. Plums in November. Another quilt partially done at the domestic that needs to go on the longarm to be finished. In November 2013, I made this top from a kit that had been in my storage from some time before spring 2012.

FINISHED 12. 10. (because I don't have the longarm skill set yet to do what is now 12, and 10 is first up for the Elm Street Challenge)   Bohemia. This flimsy needs to be quilted. I purchased its kit in January 2014 and put the top together that month. <<Quilted in January on schedule, and completely finished, including hanging sleeve, Feb 8, 2018.>>

11. Sew Spooky. Another one partially quilted at the domestic that needs finishing on the longarm. It’s even on zippers right now! The quilt top was made in Oct and Nov 2014, and then the domestic quilting was done in February 2016. In Oct 2017, I took all the pins out, and prepped it for the longarm.

12. Set Sail. This flimsy needs to be quilted. It was a kit I purchased from Quilting By the Bay in Panama City, Florida in 2011. The center was constructed July-August 2013, and the borders were constructed in July 2017.

Six additional UFOs are slated with the preceding projects for my 18 in 2018 goal. This is an extension of Meredith and Anne's former 2017 challenge, and will be hosted here this year. They are hosting 6 & 6 for 2018 for those who want to pull in new projects. I'll be playing over there, as well.  :) 

13. Dear Jane. This flimsy needs to be quilted. It is definitely on the Top-10 list for this year, but it goes in this part of the list because I know it will take more than a month to finish, and I will be putting it on and taking it off the longarm between other projects to keep the work from becoming oppressive. It will get intensive custom quilting. The top was started on August 21, 2011 and finished on August 13, 2013 - right on time for the schedule I’d set of 10 blocks per month. It has 5139 pieces! The blocks are tiny and intricate. It’s insane, and I loved doing it. I’ve put its quilting off until I developed enough skill to do what I wanted to do. I’m not 100% there yet, but It’s Time to finish this lady! Deana and I are going to spur each other to gets our Janes quilted. Aiming for an April start.

14. Modernology. This flimsy needs to be quilted. The top was pieced December 2013 – August 2014.

15. Listen With Your Eyes. This project needs to be pieced. It was started in October 2011 at a Jacqueline DeJong workshop at Quilting By the Bay in Panama City, Florida. After a few weeks of work, it sat idle in a gorgeous chest drawer for six years, until I finished the New York Beauty blocks in November 2017.

16. Let’s Build a Snowman. This project needs blanket stitching on all the fused pieces. The applique work was done in December 2012, from a kit I’d purchased at Christmastime in either 2010 or 2009. I had to supplement and replace many fabrics from my own stash.

17. Kashmir. This project needs to have its blocks made. It was a kit purchased in August 2012. I got as far as washing and cutting the fabrics, then it was boxed so we could move.

18. Wind in the Whiskers. This project needs to have its fused applique work completed for blocks 3-7. This was started at the end of October 2014 and worked on fairly regularly through February 2015. Some more work was done June – Aug 2015, and then it sat. Because the pattern is horrid. A tiny work was done in March 2017 before it was picked up again in December. I intend to keep this on my regular BOM rotation until it is a flimsy. Hopefully that can happen before 2018 is over!

So I have 14 quilts that I want to finish completely, and 4 more quilts that I want to at least advance a stage. 

I also hope to “activate” one NETY each month from my deep storage, and none of my BOM projects are on this list. They will advance as normal around my priority work.


~*~*~  Linking at:

Patchwork Times UFO Challenge 2018
What a Hoot Quilts 18 in 2018