BOMs Away - 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)

Bag 6 of my Harmony BOM is the Crescendo blocks.

They are four quite large applique blocks, and will take two or three more weekends to finish up, I'm sure. 

I really would like this to be hand stitched, but there are not enough years in my life to do everything that way, y'know? 

Bummer how slow the freezer paper prep is, but I wanted turned edge on this quilt instead of fusible. So I grit my teeth and do it. I'm such a whiner-baby about this method. Hah!

The leaves are stitched down, stems are not. I'll add the central stem before I stitch all of those in one approach, since they're all the same thread color. I'm using 100wt silk with teeny tiny blanket stitch nips. The stiches won't show much at all after it's quilted.

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What BOM type project have you worked on recently? 

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

~ Flimsy Alert! ~ Wind & Waves (the lighthouse quilt)

 Woohoo  :)  Another flimsy, already!  One more for the UFO score.  :)

48 x 53 inches, a Douglas Laird design for the collection "A World of Possibilities"

2021 UFO Score:

3 UFO quilts completely finished

1 curtain finished and installed

8 quilt projects shot down to flimsy status

This was a kit I'd bought prior to moving here in Jun 2012. In 2017, I washed fabrics and cut everything out, as a breather between main projects. This week, I pulled it out as a palette cleanser, so to speak, before I shift from that big Heritage quilt top to the next stretch of longarm work. I have one pantograph quilt that should be easy, then two full-custom tops that will take a lot of attention and energy.

I really like it. It did its cleansing job to give my brain a break - apparently a little too well, at that!  I made mistake after mistake after mistake. So what should have taken an afternoon to throw together took 2 days and a lot of Jack time, as well as a good bit of re-cutting. Good thing I had enough fabric left over for the three that I had to recut!

I could call it COVID brain, but I really think I was just off my game between intense projects.  :)

I made the binding -

But I didn't make the backing yet. Once this was all together, I realized it would be PERFECT to use a nice soft 21-wale corduroy for the backing. So I've got some of that in navy on order, and I've released the original fabric intended for the backing into my stash. (It's the same as the binding fabric, so it'll be fantastic for anything needing a navy blender.)  I was super good and refrained from buying anything else, even the latest Edyta Sitar bundle . . . even to get free shipping. . .  I have a ton of UFOs to shop amongst when I need something "new" to look at! 

Linking up at 

 Tish's UFO Busting Party

~ Flimsy Alert! ~ Collection For a Cause: Heritage

 Here is a UFO from 2008, now in full Flimsy status!

91 x 91 inches

This is the first Collection for a Cause - Heritage. The historian in me was charmed by the idea of making a replica of a quilt that was made from 1830-1846. This was a period when many of my ancestors were pioneers and it was possible that they could have seen or used some of this fabric when it was originally made. 

Making the pinwheels is as far as I got in 2008. I wanted to use the same placement in my quilt as the original's, so they were carefully paired, marked, and binned up with the setting, sashing, backing, and binding fabrics. Just making all those pinwheels was a lot of work, so that's one reason I tired of the project. Another reason is that it is not my colorway at all. I wasn't highly motivated to pull it back out.

When I made my 2021 UFO lists for the APQ challenge on Facebook (I did one for quilting, one for piecing), I chose a spectrum of projects from favorites to oldies. This was one of my oldest UFOs.

I also made the backing. As I bought this kit long before I had my longarm, I was surprised that I had enough yardage for a longarm backing. It didn't leave me enough to matchy-match the print at the seams, so for once I had to get over myself and ignore that. And, you can see I made the binding as well. Even though it will be quite a while before this gets quilted, I really, REALLY like having the binding ready to go once I've done that. 

I keep all my pre-prepped bindings tidily organized in this drawer, so I always know right where to find them, even if a couple years have gone by. Doing things this way makes sure I don't accidentally release a quilt's binding fabric into my stash when I put away the scraps from the project at Flimsy Stage. 

And now I'm pre-shrinking the batting for the next UFO that's being loaded on the longarm today.  :)

Linking up at 

 Tish's UFO Busting Party

 Finished Or Not Friday

BOMS Away - Temperature Quilt

 

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)

This was my week for stitching down and putting together the next 28 Temperature Quilt dots that I'd prepped since last time. ~ ~ She's growing!

Oh - P.S. - A couple folks have asked how I've been doing after my first vaccination. Just fine, thanks! After two days of intense lymph node action that gave me a whole new perspective on how excruciating the Bubonic Plaque must have been, I've back at the same place I was before the shot.  :)

~*~*~*~

What BOM type project have you worked on recently? 

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

Mid-Week Makings

I don't usually do WIP posts anymore, but since I caught up last weekend's BOM work on Tuesday and forgot to edit that in, I thought I'd pop my head in this way for a change. 

Those 100 "diagonals" patches are finished, and all the Bag 1 and Bag 2 pieces are connected.  :)  They'll hang out up there until next month's work for Sage & Sea Glass.

Normally I only do priority work M-F (which is whatever project is up on my UFO knock-down list) and my evening TV-time hand stitching. Right now, that is:

Putting together the "Collection for a Cause - Heritage" top from the 2008 kit I'd bought. This one takes longer to do than tops usually take, because I'd decided to place the fabrics the same as the original 1830-1846 quilt. I mean, if you're going to buy fabric that was meticulously reproduced specifically for that quilt, and the entire reason you bought the set was to make the reproduction quilt, wouldn't you do that with the placement? 

But it does mean you can't just random-scrap assemble, and the practicalities of this household preclude laying this large set out on the floor and then grid-assembling. 

I had printed out a photo of the quilt back when I got everything started and made the pinwheels in 2008. Fortunately, everything was in the box, still organized. I'm slightly over 1/2 finished on this top. The first half is hanging out on the piano while it waits for its complement to be made.

These colors are not floating my boat, but I have to admit that it's mighty nice to have a break from  all the blue/green quilts I've been working on for months.

I noticed yesterday that on-point setting no longer phases me the least. It used to feel tricky and a little challenging to me years ago. I remember it being quite daunting, in fact. 

Like curved seams and Y-seams, though, once you've done a lot of it, it's Easy-Breezy from there out.

When I finish this up in about a week, I'll move onto my next-in-line longarming UFO. I still don't have enough energy recovered to do both that and patchwork in the same day. Someday I hope to be back to my former full work capacity!

Evening sit-and-stitch at the TV with Scott continues to include cutting out bird bodies and wings for the Heather & Patrick temperature quilt. I can just about see the end of the set! It will be 1460 bird parts when I finally finish. I still have to trace out the last 5 colors. (32 in all)

I just have one set of dots to run through my Perfect Circles for those to be ready for assembly attention at next weekend's BOM session.

AND - !  My brand-new Grandma labels arrived yesterday!!  Now I can stitch one onto this luscious little Cuddle blanket that I threw together for our very first grandbaby, due this fall!!

Linking up at Susan's Midweek Makers 

BOMs Away - Neptune's Gift and Sage & 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)

I finished the 16 smaller flying geese arcs for my Neptune's Gift BOM:

And I got a good bit of work done for Sage & Sea Glass. This week was slotted for attention to Bag 3 of this BOM. That work is to put together 100 cream patches that have 3 greens in them on the diagonal. 

When I have a large number of repetitive patches to make, I do them in batches of 20 at a time, and add the next batch as I go to the next seam. So once I'm well into the process, I'll have 20 at seam one + 20 at seam two + 20 at seam 3, and so on. You get to start smaller than the whole job, and then after going full steam a while, you get to taper down so that when you start to weary of the entire set, your work gets shorter and shorter. It sustains me through tedious portions of patchwork.

While I was working on Bag 3, I was also doing the connecting work of Bags 1 and 2. I love the resulting patches! They're so much prettier than their parts, but they also look like Siamese kitty faces with gigantic ears.

But I only got about 2/3 through the process of this week's BOM work. Not because I wearied of it, but because Marissa and I took advantage of the beautiful weather to visit the site she and her fiancé have chosen for their wedding at the beginning of June. 

We wanted to count all the posts and columns, and get measurements of the spacing so we can plan out the swags and bows and greenery pieces she'd like to decorate with. You can't use tape, and everything has to be up, ceremony performed, and down within the 2 hour reservation they have. And the only thing you're allowed to put down on the ground or toss at the couple (because of the lake and wildlife) is real rose petals. So then we came back to the house and dug out all our stashes of silk flowers, gauzes, ribbons, baskets, votif stands/jars, etc., so she could see which things work with her color and style scheme. There's a definite advantage to being the youngest of three girls in a family that has plenty of storage space to keep decorations from former weddings and celebrations! We have gaps in the plans that will need some purchases, but not very many. Mainly just the right color of ribbons for big post bows on the gazebo and in table decorations, and a few more flowers in a particular color.

Through it all, I was gritting my teeth half the time and trying not to burst out with too many "Bloody Hell!"s - Scott laughs at me, because when I'm in a ton of pain, that's my release valve. I still maintain that since we're not British, that is not technically cursing. <snort>

I finally got my first COVID jab on Wednesday. It made me feel sedated almost immediately, and I took a 5 hour nap. Felt basically fine all Thursday and Friday, and then Saturday all the lymph nodes in that armpit and breast and neck started filling up and getting painful. From that evening, all through Sunday, I felt like a Cookie Cutter Shark was attached on my armpit/breast and would not let go, and that it was all angrily infected (describing the feeling, not the actual state). Fortunately, this morning the nodes are subsiding. Now it's only mildly irritating. I think I'll give my body one more day to concentrate on immune system work, and tomorrow I'll get back to my daily walking "therapy" plan. (Which is a very leisurely .2-mile stroll, trying to get my body capable of exercising again.)

People keep asking me about deciding to get vaccinated, so:

Yes, I had full-blown COVID back in October. I was lucky and did not have to be hospitalized, but I did have to do 4 weeks of heavy duty steroids. And yes, I have Lupus (which means my immune system is all whacked out) - and is quite likely the reason I've been dealing with Long-COVID problems ever since. I chose to do the vaccine for three reasons: 

1) Re-infections keep popping up, and cardiologists do not trust that self-immunity lasts longer than six months; 

2) COVID in the wild keeps mutating, and I don't trust that whatever immunity I may have gotten will work for the newer strains (the vaccines are designed to target the stable portion of the molecule, not the pieces that mutate); 

3) About 20-23% of studied Longhaulers report that doing the vaccination greatly improved their symptoms 1-2 weeks afterward. Only 3% reported worsening, so the remaining 74-77% saw no change. Who knows - maybe I'll win the vaccination lottery and it will lessen my long-haul issues. One can hope, anyway.  I do know I can't do full-blown COVID again.  Hence, I'm doing the vaccination.

P.S. For conspiracy minded folks: There is no way in this universe that any government is implanting tracking units into us through these vaccinations. The needle is the tiniest thing I've ever seen and you don't even feel it go in. No tracking seed could possible fit through.  ;D  I believe in using discretion about vaccinations, but this is one that you should all get unless you have medical conditions where your specialist advises you to hold off on it. Bonus: It's 100% free in the U.S. right now. (I don't know about other countries.)

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But let's get back to quilting!  Did you happen to do any BOM work the past couple of weeks? 

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

BOMs Away - Neptune's Gift, and a Large-Bird Easter

 

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 hope you had a nice Easter. It was deliciously warm here, something like 72 degrees and gorgeous. I got a little bit ahead of myself and couldn't resist going out for a walk through the meadows behind us. It took zero effort to convince Scott to come along. 

It's just over a half-mile to stroll along the first stretch, cross the little brooklet on the wood palettes somebody placed there forever ago, meander around the bend  to the connecting meadows, and then you can go up the little rise to sit on a bench and watch the cowbirds and magpies doing their meadow "thing". Walking the half-mile back, we saw a gigantic red-tailed hawk surveying all the pocket gopher trails. Asked him to please come catch lunch from our yard. . . ha!

This photo is from Syracuse University. Check out those TALONS!

I thought that since there's not much hilly-ness to deal with on that walk, and we were being leisurely, I'd be fine. But no, just about 6 months out from getting COVID, that much "exercise" trashed me pretty soundly for the rest of the day. Good thing we didn't have company expecting a fancy meal! I was good for nothing but crashing on the sofa until dragging into bed for the night.

But the fresh air and sunshine sure were nice!

Apparently the large birds in our area all thought so, too - we've never had a turkey in the yard!

Texting the "kids," they thought it was cool that we were visited by an Easter Turkey.

But Navarre looks like he could have lived the rest of his life without seeing one - His face!!  lolol

And then we were visited by this sweet Mallard couple. We've seen them off and on the past two years. He stands guard a few feet away from her while she eats her fill under our bird feeders, and when she's happy and lays down for a moment, he'll grab some food for himself . . . and then they fly back to the pond across the street. We don't see them super often, so it's sweet when we do. The Canada Geese that like the same pond never come to our yard.

Between it being Easter and trashing myself doing too much for the long-COVID, My entire sum of BOM work this week was to wash the fabrics from my Month 2 kit that arrived Thursday, and get the pieces cut out on Saturday for some future action. I didn't do a stitch of sewing this weekend.

 

~*~*~*~

I hope you had a pleasant Easter!  Did you happen to do any BOM work? 

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

Finish Report! ~ Scott's "Morning Stroll" ~

I get caught up with actual quilting work and forget to do my finish posts!  Last week I finished the second of the pair of row quilts for my husband to take to his office:

"Morning Stroll," designed by Marie Noah.
  42.5 x 14 inches, single layer Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 batting

I wanted the quilting of the sky to feel like morning waking up with the sun coming over the mountains, so dramatic rays and a few clouds for interest were the order of the day.

These quilts all have block patchwork integrated into the design, and this one gave me fits trying to figure out how to do the detail quilting I like to do in those areas. At first, I was planning to quilt it in the mountain/center/lake-and-ground layers. But it wasn't floating my boat very well. 

Then my mind went back to the moon motif detailing in the patchwork of the first Marie Noah row quilt I did for Scott (Night Watch), which inspired me to do something on the entire pieced area that echoed the idea of morning sunshine bursting onto the world. 

I'm giving all of these row quilts the same outer border motif with the oak-leaf inspired free-motion work, and like the moose quilt, I let the main characters (bear in this case), give me an idea for the mini border. So these guys got a continuous line of fish for breakfast!

I forgot to snap a shot of the label. Most often, I make a text box in Word so I can print something out on prepped fabric. Sometimes I'll put in a coordinating picture, and I did that with this one. You can see that I note the contribution of other people on my labels, in this case the design being somebody else's. My early quilts' labels included the name of the quilter if I sent them out for longarming. It's important to do this.

I really love these designs. When Scott came home the day he took it in and put it up, he told me he had a 90yo woman in the office who thoroughly enjoyed the 4 Marie Noah row quilts and the 4 other mini quilts of my own designs that he has up in the rooms there. She asked if she could see the others in the room she wasn't in, and asked him to make sure to tell me how much she loved them. She noticed little details on her own, like those fish in the mini border. That was neat to hear.  :)   

I'm linking up at:

Tish's UFO party

TGIFF at TBA this week