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Sunday, March 28, 2021

BOMs Away - Temperature Quilt & "Harmony"

 


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)


Wow - we're already at the last BOMs Away of March! I can't believe that.

I did the Month 5 sewing for my "Harmony" BOM. 

Here are the Forte blocks:



I also did all the finish work on the pile of dots from the past 4 weeks and got those sewn together in their rows:



~*~*~*~

Did you do any BOM work lately? We would love to see your progress.

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.


You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Finish Report! ~ Scott's "Moose Lake" ~

Here is the first of two row quilt finishes I will have this week!



This is a Marie Noah design and kit that I purchased from Northern Threads in 2018 at Scott's request. It finished at 40.5 x 14 inches, and I used a single layer of Hobbs 80/20 batting. 

I had this loaded in tandem with a sibling row quilt, and it took a surprisingly long time to quilt them up.  Not because of Covid "stuff," but because these mark the first time I've done the stitching-down of the fusible as the quilting itself, rather than stitching down the applique pieces at the domestic machine first. It works fine at a slow speed, basically as slow as the domestic machine on half-speed mode. I didn't have problems with sticky needle or pieces popping up. 



If you know me, you know I'm a thread enthusiast, spurning the invisible threads in particular on applique. I don't like the way the needle holes show up so much more with that. Instead, I use several colors in weights ranging from 40 to 100, depending on the effect I want, and this quilt has everything from Glide 40wt to Aurifil spools to Superior Microquilters. It takes me much shorter time now to do the side squiggling for tension adjustments than it did three years ago. Tension play was a huge ordeal at first, but now it's a half-minute task that doesn't faze me.

These row quilts give me the hardest time figuring out just how to quilt them, for some reason. Moose Lake wasn't too hard - throw some CC's on the patchwork at the bottom. . .



Do some pin-striping and oak-leaf inspired free-motion play for the outer border to simulate a carved wooden frame. . .



But what to do for the sky? It happened that our weather here on that day was a classic heavy-air mountain day, where everything feels pregnant with the possibility of snow, but the cloud cover is moving along and probably going to pass you up. So I thought I'd try to quilt that feeling.  

I put in clouds, then wind swirls up high, pushing them along, and then "heaviness lines" below. Those served the dual purpose of making the mountains and trees pop out nicely. While I was at it with that pale blue Microquilter thread, I put in snow-cap "floofs" on the mountaintops.

So now what to do with the mountains? I had envisioned something fancy with the log cabin piecework in them, but whenever I drew something on my overlay acrylic sheet, I hated it. It turned out that all they wanted was to be ditch-stitched. I did throw in some close-placed straight lines along the edges where background mountain peaks needed to recede behind the foreground peaks instead of just being one field of piecing. That worked very nicely! 


The stony bases were too big to be left open, as they puffed out too much to be background portions of the whole picture, so I wandered lightly, basically dividing the fabric's colorations. 

Most of the rest of the quilting was simply stitching down and defining the applique pieces, with some water lines in the lake portion. 

But that rust mini border puffed out unattractively for a wall hanging, and I didn't know what the heck to do there. So I just "wrote" in some stylized M's  - for "Moose," you know! (I did chalk in some 1" guidelines, then freehanded the M's between those all around.)



They turned out great! It just looks like another wooden-frame motif.

Wash and block, bind and throw on a label. . .



. . . and this guy's ready to join the two sibling row quilts that are already at Scott's office.  :)  



The second of these fun row quilts just needs me to stitch the label on after it finishes drying, so I'll be posting that one tomorrow.  

I'm linking up at:

Tish's UFO party
TGIFF at Storied Quilts this week

Monday, March 22, 2021

BOMs Away - Sage and Sea Glass

 


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)


Hello - happy Monday.  :)    It seems that Colorado has decided Sundays are the days to slam our little area with blizzards and major snow, so that folks have to get up extra early on Monday to dig out enough to get to work. (Our street and cul-de-sac do not get plow service, and its steep slope gets impassable, so Scott and Neighbor Jeff hit it with the snowblowers.) Scott doesn't mind the exercise, and I think it's *gorgeous*, so it does make for a nice morning.

8 fresh inches this morning, and not supposed to stop until Wednesday.


This weekend, I did the Bag 2 sewing for Sage and Sea Glass. All 100 QST units are made!

Pressed with spun centers and everything.



I also stitched all the green dots from my Temperature pile of prepped applique. But I didn't tie their ends off or pop them off the stabilizer papers or trim out the centers of the background. Once I finish the two bindings and labels that I'm stitching down, I'll finish these up. 


And, boy, do I need a different color to look at! Blues and greens are definitely my favorites, but I also thrive on variety. Something yellow . . . or red . . . would be nice to provide relief from the cool tones in everything I'm doing right now. As soon as I finish the current priority piecing UFO, I'm going to look for something in my storage that will do that.


~*~*~*~

But now it's about you! Have you done any BOM type work lately? We would love to see your progress.

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.



You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Friday, March 19, 2021

March OMG Finish - Window 1

 Yes!  

My first window's valance is FINALLY finished and mounted! 




It's only been in the works for like two years. . .   ::sigh::



I *love* the fabrics. I worried that the turquoise embroidery would be a little weird in the cerulean blue room, but it's spot on with its cheeriness! And the texture of the lining fabric is perfect in the room. And then I also worried about the blush pink shantung silk tabs - was it too much of a pop for the room?



I intended their color to play with the pink-family tones in the floral oil painting I have by the sinks (and the floral arrangement between the sinks and the garden tub). I worried right up until it was finally hung and I stepped back and saw: Happiness.  :)   My ideas came together the way I'd pictured in my mind.



There's a lesson in that: Often as we're working, the components of what we're doing don't seem like they're playing the way we want them to. But in quilting (and décor) the sum of the whole is frequently more than the value of the parts alone, and if you persevere, the end result is terrific. It's hard to trust in that, though, when you also know that sometimes you just end up with a hot mess.


The problem with this project was - - - the upholstery grade fabrics are too much for my sewing machine to handle once you get multiple layers going. So all the header sewing has to be done by hand. It's not fun, even with the correct needle for the job. And we're talking a 64" header! It's hard to push through everything, and even with a thimble it does a number on my finger. So I found it extremely easy to continuously shunt the work aside and do bindings or hand applique, instead, each evening. It took an OMG assignment to get it done.

And now that the first one is finished and up, I have motivation to stitch the heading and tabs onto the second one without resorting to using a quilt's OMG spot to make myself do the work.  ;D

I love this room. It's a good thing I'm the one who pays the water bill each month, or I'd be lounging and reading in here every day. . . 



(Oh - if you're sharp-eyed and wondering about that painter's tape in the middle of my window frames, it's there to remind me that as soon as it's warm enough to open windows to work with smelly things that exacerbate my Lupus, I need to repaint the sashing that was marred when the middle broken window was replaced. Flying shrapnel from another project destroyed that glass - lucky it wasn't a person that it hit!)

Sunday, March 14, 2021

BOMs Away - Finishing a Gift, More Dots, and some Harmony

 



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)


We got some serious snow today, and it's not stopped yet. Made for good BOM working time!


(But not for good chow time outside - this little guy entertained us with his multiple punchings and drillings into the snow bank to find the food stash underneath. It was at least two feet deep on top of the seed bin Scott keeps on the ground for the squirrels so they'll leave the pole feeders for the birds.)


I finished the 16 flying geese arc units for Neptune's Gift:



Prepped the next set of Temperature dots:



and sewed the four Month 4 "Chorus" blocks for Harmony:



All in all, pretty good!


 ~*~*~*~

How about you? Have you done any BOM type work lately? 


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.


You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Monday, March 8, 2021

BOMs Away - Neptune's Gift

 


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 didn't have much sewing time this weekend, but I got a good start on this next one.

I filled the second hole in my BOM rotation with this brand new project, and Month 1 arrived with perfect timing.

Have you seen Neptune's Gift floating around recently? Scott is excited about this one. I knew he would love it. He does know it'll take a whole year to get all the monthly kits.




This is designed by Linda McGibbon.

The first kit is the 16 larger flying geese arcs, and I was able to get them to the half-way point:



And I was bad! I didn't finish prepping this week's set of dots. I only made 4 of the circles. I may or may not catch these things up during the week, as we have a huge mess to finish sorting and re-storing from the forced emptying of the storage room for water heater leak/replacement. You can fit a LOT of *stuff* in a bedroom-sized utility room!!

-- How funny - the humor just struck me that I've spent an entire week moving things and then sorting and replacing stuff because of a water heater flood (thank goodness for plastic tubs - not one thing damaged, and thank goodness my stash is in there, so the room is never unseen for more than a couple of days) - and this new BOM is named after the god of the sea . . .  haha!!


 ~*~*~*~

How about you? Have you done any BOM type work lately? 


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.


You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

March~!

My One Monthly Goal is to finish hand stitching the silk loop-things onto my bathroom window dressing  #1 and get it installed.



I chose this instead of one of my many quilt UFOs, because it's been languishing by the TV for months and months, always getting subordinated to either a UFO's finished handwork or to hand applique stitching. It seems that making it an OMG is the only way it will move on through!


And here is "The Rest of the Story" for March --


Mon-Fri Priority Time: 

Longarm: APQ UFO #2 Modernology > UFO #11 It's a Silky Wool Flannel Kind of Day

Domestic: Bindings onto Moose Lake and Morning Stroll > UFO #11, Spanish Tiles > Down the Rabbit Hole   [Plus slip in 10 min per day on the secret birds.] [Leader-Ender is still Feathered Goose units 4]

Evening hand stitching: 

Finish the first bathroom curtain > And to All a Good Night

Saturday Free-Play: 

Whatever UFO catches my eye (usually ends up being that weekend's BOM)

Weekend BOM times: 

[Temperature dots] and rotate Harmony, Sage and Sea Glass, Neptune's Gift if it arrives


I sometimes get comments from people who see this guideline list as a Must Do list, even a promised-to-finish list. That is not at all how I operate. This is:

My list is not as much tasking as it looks to be, and is not the least bit stressful. It is 100% motivating. 

With an empty nest house, I have several hours every day that I can devote to quilting things.  I do completely different work on the weekends from what I do Mon-Fri. I am *not* one of those people who can work on only one project all the time every day for weeks on end until it is finished. That is the fastest way to kill my mojo altogether, and then nothing happens.

Also note that other than my OMG, my list acts not as a whipping post demanding multiple finishes, but more like a bowling lane's bumper rails that keep me focused while I work along. I'm happy with whatever point each of those projects gets to by month's end. This part of my planning is about the journey, not the finishes (although the finishes crop up regularly). 

*If you were looking for the BOMs Away link-up, it is on the last post: BOMs Away Monday 

Linking this post up to OMG March