Looking for this week's BOM's Away? Link is here ~~> 
Love Barbara's NewFO parties each month, and they're really helping me get these kits pulled out of stone-cold status and on their way to becoming quilts before my youngest is out of high school. ;D Lots of other fun projects emerging, so take a fun breakfast stroll through the other links.
This was a fun Fall-ish project to pull out of deep storage NETYs (Never Even Touched Yet) and get into the mix.
"Climbing Lanterns" is a kit I'd bought who-knows-when at whatever sale that snagged me. The pattern is by Marinda Stewart, and it uses the Laura Gunn "Lantern Bloom" fabric collection.
The quilt is a background of nice earthy colors patched together in 6 inch patches with a woody print appliqued over in a tree form. It has a fun 3-D component, which is what those pieces in the first photo are for. You make a couple folds and straight-stitch those, do some gathering stitches, put in some fiber-fill puffing, and stitch them down onto the quilt hanging from the branches. That will be fun to do. :)
I'm seeing if I can successfully adapt the back-basting method I use for hand applique to machine applique. So far so good. I drew out the tree on the back of the background. Laid the tree fabric front-side-down on the floor, then laid the background front-side-down on top of that and pinned it well. I put my machine on the largest stitch it will do, lowered the tension significantly, and with the pinned layers upside-down so I could see my pencil lines, I stitched over those. Got some thread bloopies from the super-loosened tension, but that won't matter one bit.
I cut about 1/4" away from the stitching, and with the quilt top-side-up in the machine, I'll be taking out those basting stitches a stretch at a time, turning under the edge, and real-stitching the edge down. Maybe with the teeny-tiny blanket stitch I favor, or maybe I'll try that "invisible" machine stitching I remember seeing something about online if I can find that again.
Not sure yet if I'll attach the 3D lantern blooms before or after I do the quilting. But this is a really nice little quilt (a good small sofa size) in real life.
Here's my backing fabric that I got at the time (glad I did, as the collection is too old to find anymore):
This is the binding fabric that came in the kit. I'm not digging it for this quilt. I'm relishing a knife-edge finish, instead. But won't this fabric be a great addition to my small-yardages stash? :D
I don't think I'm going to store this project away just yet - I'll keep it out in case I ever have sewing moments available in October after doing my daily anniversary quilt sewing. :)
Oh!!!!! And I want to journal this:
HAHAHA!~! Nothing like Nature and a kiddo to break your snarky mood. A little walking after dropping the girls off at the school, and a gorgeous fox dashes across the road 20 feet ahead. Around the corner, as I'm passing a mom with a toddler in a stroller, *another* fox sprints full-out across us not 10 feet ahead, chased by a madly screaming magpie. The kid has the most astonished look I've ever seen on her face, and in that stuttering way they have, yells out:
"Dat kitty.... Dat doggy.... Dat kitty......... Dat Kitty-Doggie is in touble! Dat birdie will SPANK him!" lolol
