Whoop! First Flimsy of the Year & Gettin' Over Myself

Whoop! Whoop!

I'm just too tired for any fancy photo-op'ing

I finished my first flimsy of the year - my Daisy Days Farmhouse Four-Patch, which is a direct replica of Amy Smart's. She was even so kind as to put up a free pattern tutorial for it. Mine came out at 62 x 70.5 inches.

I have to wait for two quilts to be finished before I can put it on the frame - I'm really hoping to have this completely finished and on my reading chair for a Valentine's for myself.

And I've gone insane, surely, but I've picked up the gauntlet laid down by another 18 in 2018'er - In addition to my original list of 18 UFOs I want to finish/advance, I'm curious to see if I can put together 18 flimsies in the year. So this is the start of that list, and my first share of an accomplished item for that challenge.

18 Flimsies in 2018:

1. Daisy Days Farmhouse Four-Patch

But I've also gotten over myself on a major step for me at the longarm. If you don't have one, you may not know some of the things that are incredibly difficult to control at first: anything on a diagonal. Anything at all. And fine detail work, including controlled small curves. Like quilting in S's and U's. 

Turns out I hemmed and hawwed and put this part of the Sapphire Stars quilting off as long as possible for no real good reason. Given the right tool and super slow speed (thank you, stitch regulator!!) - it really wasn't that bad!

And yes, I honestly did repeat out loud while doing this: "The Force is with me; I am one with the Force. . . "  And Leia bobbled her little head encouragingly. Must've worked.  :)

Just goes to show us: Quit Being Afraid!!!  Jump in and try whatever it is you're dragging your feet on!! The worst that could happen is you'd have to pick it out. Honestly, that's not so terrible, and you just might surprise yourself. You'll surely never develop a skill if you don't even try.  


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Linking to:

Sarah's Whoop Whoop Friday
18 in 2018 - January

BOMs Away - Wrestling with "Wind in the Whiskers"

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.)

Talking about stalled out projects. . . My Wind in the Whiskers BOM has been abandoned since March, when I did hardly anything on it. And it was August 2015 before that, that it was last touched.

(These two blocks were individually pinned on my design wall.)

There's a reason for that. This is the WORST pattern I've ever worked with. Which is horrid, actually, because her patterns are quite expensive. I've done several other McKenna Ryan projects, and while they were intricate, they were completely decipherable.

This one is not. Working on it is a huge drain, and you just don't get anywhere - not because there's so much work, but because you CANNOT figure the durn thing out.

Barbara at Cat Patches knows!

So today, I've vowed that this thing is going to move forward one way or another. It's a beautiful quilt, and I want it hanging in my longarm studio by the end of next summer. So I'm bagging the pattern, other than tracing out the pieces, and doing it my own way.

First of all, I assembled the entire upper portion of the backrounds. Blocks 1 and 2 already had everything but the tree fused down, so they got trimmed to perfect size and joined. The pattern has you do a ton of stuff first, but not some stuff - and it's impossible to figure out what is what, and there's no exact full-size layout, so you can't figure the exact place to put some of the ones you're supposed to do before sewing the blocks together. . .

You get the drift. 

The other three backgrounds got cut slightly oversized so that the little bits of shrinkage during fusing won't matter. I'll trim the other edges to perfect size later. (That's why you can see them hanging over at the outer edges)

And that's all pinned back up on my design wall above my domestic machine. Had to shift everything around to accommodate its growth. Next I'll assemble all the non-tree components for blocks 3-5. Then I'll figure out which pieces I actually need for the tree and branches/leaf-regions that overhang all the blocks. It's not the least bit clear in the patterns which pieces those actually are. [Each block has its own pattern packet, and I think the gobbledy-gook of it all comes from these being written as individual mini quilts first, and then she intended the replacement pieces and full-quilt instructions to bridge the difference when you're making the full quilt, but that just didn't pan out anywhere near as well as it was supposed to. Those full-quilt adjustments are supposed to be explained in Block 4's packet (btw - why isn't this up front in Block 1's??), but it's like only the first 1/5 of the necessary adjustment discussion is there. And you can't get sufficient clarification on the errata page online.]

Again: BARBARA KNOWS!!!

Block 1's fusible pieces, for example.

I'm not doing any of the tracing and placing of lots of little pieces today, though, to do anything more than this. Doing what I did today put me in a foul mood, and I would rather do something Christmasy. I have hopes that the next session with this BOM will be a much better experience.

Instead, I put the downstairs tree up, and that really cheered my mood. Bonus points: It sits right by my sewing nook.  :D

And I rewarded my intense, stress-inducing foray into "Whiskers" by finishing my easy 4-patch "Daisy Days" blocks which I'd half-way sewn three weeks ago. This quilt will now wait until after the holidays to be assembled. Everything's been cut, ready to fly through the machine. :)

And it's much more fun than deciphering this crazy pattern. 

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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.

Thank you, Fat Quarter Shop!

Last month I participated in the annual Pets on Quilts online quilt show, and I was chosen for one of the sponsor prizes.

I thought it was quite generous of Fat Quarter Shop to send me a $50.00 gift certificate! And it came at a great time.

And it turned into this  :)

You know how somebody's quilt-along or pattern sucks you in, and you don't always know just why it does that? Something about the combination of the fabrics used and the presentation just strongly appeal to you, and you talk yourself out of doing it since you already have so many projects?

Well. . . 

Amy Smart at Diary of a Quilter did that to me recently when she used Keera Job's Daisy Days collection to put together a really sweet quilt - and then she even said she'd make a tutorial for it, so we even have the directions for free.

Amy's pic from the FQ

So along comes the Fat Quarter Shop certificate, and I didn't have any yardage needs for my next three priority finishes, and of course, I went shopping so I could make my own "Farmhouse Four Patch" quilt. Here's the link to Amy's tutorial for it: Four Patch On-Point Quilt Tutorial

Amy's pic of her quilt

I have always found Fat Quarter Shop to be reliable and to ship out in a timely manner. My little box was waiting for me when we got back from a short trip out east to meet up with Devon for a few days, and I've just sent the blues through the wash.  :)

Thanks, Amy! 

And thank you very much, Fat Quarter Shop!