BOMs Away - Seeing Stars

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.

Well, I had a fantastic BOM-sewing day since a pretty bad flare-up of my Achilles upstaged any ideas of going out and about hiking.

Got both the Month 5 and the Month 6 blocks sewn for "Star Crazy" - 6 blocks and another 48 HSTs for the border work.

As I was pressing the very last seam on the very last block, I saw that I had sewn in one of the little white blocks wrong-side-out. I allllmost just left it, thinking nobody'd ever see it, really. But I would always know it was there, and for some reason it was important to me to fix it. Four years ago I threw the ideal of perfection out the window to escape its crippling effect and actually achieve finishes. But I made myself the deal that I would always do my reasonable best. Since this quilt is not on a deadline, it felt wrong to me to knowingly leave a piece sewn in wrong just to avoid pulling out a few short seams. If it was already basted and ready to go for quilting, I'd call it reasonable, but it's still only in block-building mode. Didn't even take 10 minutes to fix it - glad I didn't squelch out on myself.  :)

And for some leader-ender action, I started this month's community service sewing, which is to assemble this block set into a flimsy. I got maybe half of the sashing work finished. (Wonder how long this is going to live on that part of the floor. . . )

AND - check it out! The "Be Attitudes" BOM top of Kelly's that I finished this past week and wrote up for Friday's TGIFF? - - - Blocking it made that border lay down perfectly flat! At least for a little while. It'll always have to be blocked when it's washed, and no telling how long it'll stay nice with use, but at least it's all spiffy for the gifting, and that makes me very happy. In the future, I'll always just remove the offending borders, trim them down to correct length, and sew them back on, because waves like that really bother me. Plus, the feather quilting would look so much prettier if it wasn't sucking in so much extra top fabric.  :)  

::MEASURE YOUR BORDERS WHEN YOU PUT THEM ON!!::

Cath is starting a new Design Board link-up, so I'll join her, as well.  :)  

~*~*~*~

How about you? - Have you worked on any BOMs lately?

TGIFF Hosting - Kelly's "Be Attitudes" is finished!!

Hi! Welcome to this week's "Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday" link-up! Have you finished something this week that you'd like to share? Link up at the bottom of this post, and be sure to visit a few links to help your quilting peers celebrate their finishes.  :D

I'm super happy to report a long-term UFO finish - my cousin Kelly's Be Attitudes quilt:

This is a Nancy Halvorsen pattern, and I'm guessing Kelly made the top in 2007, maybe 2008. It's one of the last quilts she worked on before she died. I've been madly quilting it up for a wedding gift to send to her nephew, since I know she would have made them a quilt.

This is one of my Q3 Finish Along pieces (My goal post link)

I love this quilt. It's a terrific example of the traditional side of things, with the calico-like fabrics and almost-primitive applique work. Kelly had the best hand-worked blanket stitches. They're so even, and she had a wonderful sense of scale with them. I stitched-in-the-ditch on all the black stitches, put some bits of detail-quilting on each block, then free-motion quilted the rest of the center with a leafy-ribbon sort of motif. 

This was the first time I pinned a binding on to attach it -
part of the effort to tame the waves spoken of later.

Borders got some strictly-organic free-motion work of leafy "feathers," ribbon swirls, and hearts. I had to stay away from anything linear because of squaring issues in the top's construction. I do all my quilting on my table-top domestic machine - a Viking Sapphire, to be precise. It's a dream for perfect tensioning. I used Aurifil 50 wt for most everything, except for some So Fine on the tan outer border.

I really should have taken off the last two borders, measured and trimmed them, and put them back on. They were wavy (because Kelly took to the "short-cut" method of just laying a strip of border fabric down as you sew and then cut it off at the end of your quilt), but not as much as the borders on her "Strolling the Block" had been. I thought I could work out most of the wave since I'd read about people doing that. I'd say that was about 1/2 successful. You can see, though, that some waves remain. Hopefully I can block more of that out after washing it tonight. But they'll show up again whenever the quilt is washed unless someone blocks it each time.

[Later Edit: Check it out! Blocking worked perfectly. At least for a little while that outer border is beautifully flat.]

Here are some block close-ups, just for fun. "Be Attitudes" is frequently done as a Block-of-the-Month. There are fun embroidery and button touches here and there.

This quilt finished up at 60 x 72 inches. I used a doubled Hobbs Tuscany silk batting that I'd prewashed very carefully. The puff factor is about the same as a single layer of Hobbs washable wool. It's got a softer drape, though. I really like it, although the expense of this batting will limit how often I can use it. I know just which quilt top will get it next, though!  

~*~*~*~*~

Now it's your turn to toot your horn and let us help you celebrate a finish! Link up right here.  :) 

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?