BOMs Away - "Garden Friends" Flimsy Alert!

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.)

Woohoo!!!

After venturing out on Black Friday for the first time in 20 years (and remembering why I never do that), I was in the mood for some serious home-retreat quilting work. So I opened my BOMs armoir and pulled out a box that hasn't been touched for quite a while.

My poor Garden Friends was originally purchased in 2007, and I never touched it until October 2014. I worked on it sporadically for several months, and then it was abandoned altogether when I needed to drop quilting and make Renaissance wedding outfits for 15 people. 

Yesterday I attached the butterflies, did all the cute little bits of stitchery on the blocks, fused-and-sewed the elements on the top and bottom leafy rows, and assembled the center to the black stop-border.

Isabeau *loves* the box I've been keeping this BOM in. I love how she hangs out with me at this table when I'm working here. Who can resist those blue eyes and super-silky fluff?

Today I built the other borders, fused-and-sewed all those sunflowers (I had already prepped those centers and the 90 petals, so just had to put them together), clipped the background from behind all those pieces, and finished the border assembly.

This is 64 x 70 inches. It's a "The Quilt Company" pattern, designed by Arlene Stamper and Melissa Harris. It came kitted in the "Full Sun" fabric collection (Maywood).

I'm super happy to have this BOM completed as a flimsy. I don't know if I have backing fabric for it. I'm hoping to get it on the longarm by March. I want to try some McTavishing and curved hatchwork on it. 

10 years - sheesh!!  That makes this an excellent UFO semi-finish.  :)   And it's an item off my 17 in 2017 list. (I'll be linking this up to Meridithe's 17 in 2017)

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.

BOMs Away - Garden Friends

Welcome to the link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

Do you ever start Block-of-the-Months and then not finish them? 

Or maybe you just like doing a lot of them?

This is where you can share what you're doing on a BOM or anything you work on at given intervals. 

Show us what you accomplished in the past week or so!

(Linky at the bottom.)

My BOM day was not very productive this week:

Cut out the sashing and cornering pieces to assemble the center of my "Garden Friends" BOM, marked the little bit of embroidery there is on a few of the blocks, and pieced the lower half of the sunflower borders. When it came time to assemble the last of the border backgrounds and fuse on the flower heads and petals - - - I was finished. (This is not a huge quilt - that's maybe an hour's work, total.) 

But my mind is super-invested in the groove of working on my priority work, which is about halfway quilted now. If I push super hard on it, I just might get it finished by Thursday afternoon for TGIFF hosting. So I wasn't feeling it one bit for BOM work today.

Instead, I wanted brownies. So I dropped all that and made brownies with Heather.  :)

Sometimes you do what you gotta do!

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P.S.  I bought a longarm yesterday. After NINE years of saving up, roadshow prices brought everything I wanted just under my cash-on-hand for it. Mid-May delivery. 

Still processing that! But man, is the circle doohickey accessory that I already brought home really tickling my fancy tonight! It's just what I need to make really short work of what I've always wanted to do on my "Quiet Rebellion on the Pond" flimsy. . . 

BOMs Away - Garden Friends & Down the Rabbit Hole

Welcome to the link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

Do you ever start Block-of-the-Months and then not finish them? 

Or maybe you just like doing a lot of them?

This is where you can share what you're doing on a BOM or anything you work on at given intervals. 

Show us what you accomplished in the past week or so!

(Linky at the bottom.)

I did it. I caved. I joined in on the fun of Sarah Fielke's "Down the Rabbit Hole 2017 BOM."  That'll be what I work on most Fridays, which are my "free play" day after spending M-Th working on my priority project.

This Friday I got the initial wedge circle made - worked out nicely for flatness on the first try. (That was a happy moment!) Also prepped some templates for the next part, but I'm still washing/ironing the rest of my fabrics, so I didn't start on the exploding flower circles yet.

Today, for my regular BOM schedule, I got bunches and bunches of sunflower petals traced and fused/cut out for the border blocks on Garden Friends. Still a few more to go, but we all went to see the new "Beauty and the Beast" movie together. Fun family times that revisit the now-adult kids' childhood.  :)

Were you able to get some BOM work finished lately?

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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.

:)

BOMS Away - Garden Friends

Welcome to the link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

We'd love to see the BOM you're working on lately.

This week's linkup is at the bottom of this post.

It's been so long since I worked on any of my BOMs, that the thought of pulling out any of "Star Crazy," "Garden Friends," or "Wind in the Whiskers" and figuring out where the heck I was on any of them was almost too intimidating to tackle today. But I remembered that there was stitching work to do on fusible pieces for the Garden Friends blocks that I had already made. 

So, that made an easy task for this week's BOM focus:

Now I can take care of the tails while Scott and I watch a show tonight.  :)  

An InLinkz Link-up

BOMs Away - Garden Friends

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.

I pulled the 7 blocks for Garden Friends down off the inspiration wall so I could start the stitch-down process on their fused applique. Took a fair bit of time to carefully cut away the background fabric behind the pieces first.

I did the stitching for the blacks and the greens, which comprises the largest bulk of the work. I'd hoped to finish all of it when I was considering my BOM work yesterday, but as today turned out, I ended up spending more time with family, so I wasn't able to. Which is how it should be.  :)

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Did you get any work done on your BOMs this week?

BOMs Away - Garden Friends, Grand Illusion, & a Visitor

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.

For Third-Sunday I pulled out "Garden Friends" and pieced the last two of the central blocks. I also fused all their applique pieces on:

 And I just pressed the last seam for the center of my Grand Illusion! Give me a couple of days to get all the borders on, and I'll share what I've done with that.

But I had a really great visitor for a good half of the day. This young fellow is the sweetest cat in the world! Clearly not a stray, we took him in while the kids canvassed the neighborhood to see where he was missing from. He's so sweet, though, I think every single person in the family would have been happy to adopt him if necessary. And as you can see, he fit right in with my quilting space, happily laying on various projects and lounging on the desk to watch me work. He even climbed onto my belly when I kicked my feet up to pick out a wayward seam and snoozed for a while. Too bad his human was joyful that he was found!

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Have you worked on any of your BOMs lately?

BOMs Away - Garden Friends & Nyan Cat

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.

Happy Monday! This week for BOM work, I attacked the applique work on my "Garden Friends" set. The three blocks I pieced last month now look like this, along with the two all-applique blocks. (nothing is stitched down yet)

instead of last month's point:

The B&B block still gets butterflies, but the wings weren't ready to be attached yet. 

They are 3D, but instead of just fabric flaps, I wanted to make them with batting and quilting. I layered the fabric right-sides-together on top of some batting scrap and sewed on the traced line. 

When I cut them out, first I cut the batting as close as possible to the stitches, then the fabric about 3/16 out, with notches cutting to the stitches at the inside angles. 

Flipped them right side out, zig-zagged the body edges shut and flatter, and then quilted them.

I drew lines with the blue water soluble pen, so when I finished making them, they were all damp from being spritzed to erase the marks. They have to be dry to fuse the bodies over them onto the block. That'll be a bit tricky, too, because I used a metallic ribbon thread that will melt if I iron it. I'll have to fussy-fuse them with my tiny Clover craft iron, at least enough to let me be able to blanket stitch the body without losing the wings.  :)

Isabeau loves the box I use for this project SO MUCH - I don't know how she knows it's this box and not another, but she comes running from whatever part of the house to claim it whenever I get it out of the cupboard. Funny girl!

And I have to share: One of Navarre's favorite positions is his "Nyan Cat" pose. Cracks me up the way it looks like he's flying across the sky - and he not only lets us make "poptarts" on him, but he leaves them there quite contentedly. Not sure how he's channeling a cat character he's never seen. . .   ;D

(P.S. - Wow! 6 people and 3 cats can destroy the hallway carpeting in no time flat. It is once again vacuumed nice and clean.)

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So, hey! I hope you have a great Thanksgiving Week if you're here in the U.S., and let us know if you've done any BOM work lately! 

BOMs Away - "Garden Friends"

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.

Today I started working on a "new" BOM out of my deep storage of NETYs. (That's my acronym for the kits/BOMs/fabric sets I've bought in the past that are Not Even Touched Yet)

"Garden Friends" is from 2007. I got all the fabrics washed and ironed a couple of Saturdays ago. Today I did the piecing for three of the blocks. They still need their applique.

I love the little bits of specialty fabric for each block, like this B&B flag, and the Buzz Inn hive at the top had interesting construction with the folded black print flaps that are almost like shallow pockets on each level.

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How are you doing with your BOMs?