Finish Report! King-sized Dinner Plate Dahlia

king-sized "Dinner Plate Dahlia" - a Judy Niemeyer design
116 x 108 inches

This is a Judy Niemeyer design. I extended the outer edges on the papers of the queen size pattern to make it the size we wanted for our king bed.

I started piecing this in September 2019 and finished the top in March 2020.

This is my own colorway, which I figured out on Quiltster's site. I ordered the Japanese florals and the sky blue border fabric, then supplemented those from my stash.

It went onto my longarm in late August 2021, and came off early March 2022. Quilting was slow-going because I was still limited by long-Covid effects, I had a hard time deciding what to quilt where, and - well - at 108 x 116 inches, it's a MONSTER. And, as I found, the very widest backing that I can get onto my frame.

I used 11 different threads on the top, and 3 bobbins. I do one thread at a time all the way through a quilt, change the thread, roll back the other way, repeat as necessary. That way I minimize tension adjustments. I've found that stabilizing the quilt with the ditch work and basting areas that are larger than a fist as I go along (I just use corsage pins for that) prevents any pleats from happening on the back as I roll back and forth through the rest of the process. 

The only collaboration on this is when Navarre "helped" me figure out a template for the long gray feather areas. 

And now, I'll just let the close-ups speak for themselves. This is all ruler and hand-guided. I do not have a computerized system.

And Isabeau has been convinced this is her personal quilt, ever since it went onto our bed March 3rd. 

  I am sharing at TGIFF

BOMs Away - Hijacked

                  

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)

Well, I started out sewing more birds together, since it's a week for the Love Birds project in BOM time, but my brain just couldn't dis-engage from my priority quilt of the week.

I only needed to do the last 1/3 of the outer-edge fill work to finish up the quilting on my monster super-king-sized Dinner Plate Dahlia!  

So I did that, instead, and now this baby is ALL QUILTED! (hand-guided)

And off the frame! (For GOOD!)

And now she's trimmed and ready for binding work.

But when I opened my binding drawer and found no Dinner Plate Dahlia binding waiting for its task, I remembered I had run out of the fabric I knew I'd want to use for that - but never remembered to shop for more.

After auditioning other left-overs from this project, and coordinators from my stash, I knew that I wasn't going to be happy in the end with anything but what I'd originally wanted, unless that fabric is now unobtainable.

It isn't.  :)   I found a yard of it on Etsy just now, so I'll cool my jets here, and work on other projects while I wait for delivery. It'll be soooo satisfying to bind this baby and wash it and put it on our bed!!

~*~*~*~

Did you work on a BOM type project this week? We'd love to see your progress!

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 - Love Birds!

                  

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)

Alright! All 730 sets of thread ends are tied and tucked, papers gone, and lovebirds all lined up!

So this week for BOM time I hit the assembly line. Got about a third of them put into rows, some of those rows sewn together. Not the greatest shot of all that work, but there you are:

(Navarre wants FOOD, not a photo op!)

And then I decided to pin the next round. Probably won't get to it today, but it's ready for any time I have a few moments for piecing.  :)

Quilting on the King'd Dinner Plate Dahlia is moving along great! Next up is the fill work on the "white" petals (actually a very light gray).

And then the coordinating fill work on the outer light lime petals, then some peacock feather eyes around all the berries in the green arches, the blue feather work, then petal work in the cornflower blue, teal, and cobalt blue areas, the navy big arches, the purple outer petal arches. . . Oh, the line work in the teal corner insets . . . .  I do believe that's all that's left!! I've finished all of the hardest parts.  I may - MAY - just have this quilting finished by month's end!

~*~*~*~

Did you work on a BOM type project this week? We'd love to see your progress!

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 - a Weekend In

                  

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 got a lot of sewing done on BOMs and such this weekend! We have a dramatic Covid spike in our area at the moment, so we decided we were just going to enjoy Home for the time being. 

This week's BOM was our Temperature Quilt.  All those dots from the last cutting session provided the final 5 for the last row I'd worked on assembling last month. . . 

And then made 4+ more rows!  

I cut out all the dots from Thanksgiving to the end of the year . . . 

And I prepped the documentation block for the bottom:

I always use the back-basting method for hand applique. For this block, I printed out my words in a font I liked, taped it upside down on my light box, and trace the outlines onto the back of my block's foundation. That's all the prep there is! The remainder is restful stitching during TV time.  

I used cutouts from the temperature blocks to prep the Key dots. 

 

Well, up to 65 degrees - after that I had to cut fresh dots out of the hotter colors. Our highest low was only 65 degrees. I never got to use my two hottest colors, as the highest high was only 95. 

And that pile of the other 350 cut-outs - I realized they would make excellent berries for some other project, so I put them in a baggie and stored them in my little Extra Applique Pieces drawer!  Future fun with those. 

While assembling my dots, I ran out of Stitch-Off pieces, so I prepped another round of those.

And I finished up the quilting of the large gray areas on my King size Dinner Plate Dahlia. . . After Navarre helped me figure out a template for my spines!

 This is my January longarming UFO focus, and I'm eager to get it onto the bed. 

A good bunch of work accomplished!  :)

~*~*~*~

Did you work on a BOM type project this week? We'd love to see your progress!

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 - Beachwalk

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.)

Have you been feeling crabby lately?

:)

I was, a little, while I was working on the trapunto stage for these guys.

But now they're finished, and it's pinned for the next layer of trapunto work before I move on to another block.

Devon and Cory were out here end of May to tell us they're getting married. Talking with her about what she would like for a wedding quilt, this flimsy in my To-be-Quilted closet kept calling to her, so that's the one!

"Beachwalk" is a McKenna Ryan pattern, one that I started before we moved away from the Florida northwest coast. And I just looked it up, and this BOM reached flimsy status back in October 2013!! I adore it, but the task of finishing it is monumental, so it always got pushed aside for something else when I could choose whatever I wanted to work on.

This BOM was a monthly kit, and it may very well be the last BOM/kit that I did not prewash fabrics for. It's been years, now, that I have prewashed even the smallest pieces in BOM kits (by hand in the sink, just let them air dry or press them dry), and what I've been dealing with today is just one of the reasons I do so.

There is a LOT of manufacturing stabilizer on this fabric!  I feel it on my fingers after every work session with it. It irritates my sinuses, with my chemical sensitivities. 

Most aggravating of all, the fusible web simply will not fuse with it. Even when I've tried adding a new layer of fusible, it releases edges and even whole pieces like crazy. So it's an extremely delicate job stitching these down. Thank goodness for my Purple Thang and seam ripper's tip! Not the happiest stitching situation for tension, either. 

Some of the pieces have come off altogether, and I've had to pin them in position. You can see all kinds of areas where it just lifts away from the layer beneath:

But, boy, will I love this quilt - and it will definitely be worthy of a wedding quilt for a Florida coast couple who enjoy the ocean and its denizens very much.

(And thank goodness I don't have this issue with any of my other McKenna Ryan quilt projects! All those got prewashed, and there is zero problem with the fusible staying "glued" down.

Oh - and during the weekdays, I work like crazy on this intense project so I can have the longarm for Beachwalk when I've finished the trapunto work. . .  

Heather's Med School Graduation Dahlia 

(a Judy Niemeyer pattern - Dinner Plate Dahlia)

It's got "brain cortex" in the outer border, smooth muscle cells on one petal section, and I'm working on the "DNA" parts in the black corner arches right now.

Skeletal muscle cells will be the fill for one of the intermediate background sections. 

Too fun!! Perfect for a pathologist in residency!

Wish it were all as fast and easy as these leafy feathers!!

Just the DNA arches to finish in the 40 wt. thread, then I'll switch to Microquilter 100 wt thread for the remaining fills. Looking forward to sharing it as a finish!

~*~*~

How is BOM type work going at your end?

Sure would love to see!

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