2010 Flying Needles BOM Quilt of Season

(This is a journaling entry of a quilt finished in Dec 2010)

I love this quilt!!

For 2010, I was in charge of the BOM exchange at our guild meetings. Each month the leader chooses a pattern, and anybody who makes a block gets their name put in the basket and whoever’s name is drawn gets to take all the blocks.




  

Jan - Carol's Snow Star

Each month I made the blocks in duplicate so that I could accrue a complete set of my own to make a 2010 quilt.

Feb - Hearts Card Trick

At the end of the year, I fiddled around to design a layout that would enable others who had done the same thing to create a cohesive top. 

Mar - Magic Circle

I purposefully chose a sashing that was simple enough for beginners while also allowing for unifying color play for the whole.

Apr - Dutchman's Windmill

I had Patty Butcher do the custom quilting for me on her longarm, but I had a lot of fun planning out exactly 

how I wanted each block done.

May - Rosebuds

I made life-size templates for each one, meticulously drawing the design out.

Jun - Steps to the Altar variation

Poor Patty cringed when I brought them all in!!  

Jul - Stars and Posts

Not having started any long-arm quilting myself yet, I had no idea what was easy to do and what was a pain. 

Aug - Sailboat

So I just drew exactly what I wanted. Patty actually succeeded in giving me most everything just like I had it!

Sep - Castle in the Air

Oct - Maple Leaf

Nov - Mother's Dream

Dec - Evergreen

We're all rather partial to the kitties under the tree.  :D

There were a couple of changes that she asked if she could make to ease the process, which were nice anyway, and a suggestion regarding the sashing feathers which was more pleasing than my first sketch.

The setting squares all have the guild's logo quilted in them. (And, no, Patty did not use a computer to do all those teeny-tiny flying geese motifs! They were all done by ruler help.)

This quilt has a hanging sleeve because it’s just too fun and pretty to not have up on the wall sometimes!

"What a Hoot, Heather!"

My second daughter is graduating from high school right smack after our first daughter did - Boom, Boom! Of course, GRADUATION (especially when the girls each earned Summa Cum Laude) deserves a terrific long twin quilt from mom that will do a good job of brightening up a blah dorm room.

Which means, I get to work right now on a second rendition of perhaps the favoritest quilt I've made so far. And the fun thing is that it's my own design, from start to finish. As soon as it comes home from St. Louis for the summer, we'll wash it up and have a better photo op session!

Even our Siamese loved that quilt. He sat by my side, tucked under the quilt, the whole time I stitched the binding. I'd get up to get a drink or something, and he'd dutifully climb out, sit on top, and keep my spot for me. Thanks, Koko!

Those Celtic Knot corners were a bit tricky - I don't like the look of shortcuts methods, splicing and dicing when the design is a continuous line, so I had to deal with a lot of short Y seams and interweaving of the "ribbons". But the effect was worth the effort.

And those owls are just so stinkin' cute with their button eyes! It's pure coincidence that owls are popular in quilty fabrics right now. Graduation and owls are just so obviously perfect for each other, what else would I have chosen?!




Now, I want to be up front about everything I do in quilting, so let me acknowledge my quilter on this project. I knew how I wanted the inside quilted, and Patty of Katydids Quilting did a very nice job in a rushed time frame, with great ideas for the perfect border pattern to complement the white-on-white pattern of that fabric and the celtic ribbon borders. She even wrote the graduation year in the corners! Patty is terrific, and I can't wait to start taking longarm lessons from her! In the meantime, I'm about to set up a drop-in sewing table so I can start getting good at free-motion quilting with my piecing machine.



Devon's "What a Hoot" is in blues and raspberries, per request, and her owls are mostly in pieces still. (The big white squares are so cute with floating feet and ears stitched on!) When I made Heather's, I used a spray adhesive while doing the satin-stitch applique. I loved the ease of sewing, but I wasn't happy with the thickness of the layers and difficulty in clipping the backsides. This time I'm using basting glue around the sewing edges only. The prep time is much longer, and the edges aren't as very crisp for sewing, but so far I like it enough, and I'll have NO problem getting those back layers off. The sewing world is just like everything else in life: you choose the trade-off you can live with most!