BOMs Away Monday - "Night Watch"

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.)

It has been a crazy busy week for me! Good work on my challenge UFO is happening at the longarm, I got some serious workouts in at the dojang, and while I've frequently helped out at the bi-monthly color belt tests, I put in my first sesson as a test judger Friday evening (normally I help in the belt-award room). That was intimidating, but actually very enjoyable. That was at a sister site. Working on test days takes many hours and is exhausting, though rewarding.

I'm the farthest left.

I also helped at our own site Saturday, working in the awarding room, and boy did this one little girl melt my heart! Her session was particularly large, and her entire family of 8 trains together, so her parents were both busy tying their own belts. I was helping the young sibling on her mother's other side, and when her mother turned to help her, she blurted out sweetly, "Oh, but I want the Blackbelt Hero to help me, please!"  Awwwwww   :)   I remember that feeling of awe, and it's kind of funny in relation to how you feel when you actually *are* a Blackbelt.  

Before I share my BOM work, I have to share the amazing package Selina of Selina Quilts sent me! She really went all out with her giveaway of a rice heating bag (which turned into two!), and it's already providing comfort on some muscles I used differently while pushing equipment around!

But you can see that she also sent this adorable zip-bag made from a laminated M&M bag (fabric lined, very nice), with some of my most very favorite chocolates inside since M&Ms would get smushed during shipping. She also made a cute card with a printing of the Valentine's rice bag fabric. I was so very tickled!!

This is the coolest zip bag!

Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU, Selina!!!!

And now, here's my BOM sharing for the week:

This is more of a "Quilt of the Month" than a BOM. It's the first of the six that Scott asked me to make for his offices. I told him I'd do one up each month. 

I got the block and base pieced over the past couple of weeks during morning time that couldn't be spent at the longarm, and this weekend I hit it in earnest. I've finished all but the quilting in the outer border.

I decided to try a layering approach, so I could quilt the block and background pieces without a gazillion start and stop points. It worked well! I was focused, and didn't think to take many shots during that process. First I put some trapunto pieces behing the moon and the center of the block. Then I quilted the block, stitched down the moon, and put in the "air" lines. THEN I fused the trees on, and here I was stitching those down:

After that, I just worked one more layer at a time, fusing and stitching, fusing and stitching.

You can see that I cut the backing/batting large enough
to accomodate future border work.

Until I finally had everything added in and put in some snow details at the bases of all the trees. Then I checked how the squaring may have been affected before I sewed on the borders, and adjusted the seam allowance the wee bit it needed to keep everything from skewing. It worked well, so I'll use the same approach on the companion quilts.

I had hoped to completely finish the quilting and get the binding attached, but that'll be ready for a TGIFFriday share.  :)   Assuming I can get it away from Navarre. . . 

~*~ Have you done any BOM work recently? ~*~

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 - Strolling the Block, & Tanya is So Cool!

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've spent my quilting time stitching details and buttons on three houses on Kelly's "Strolling the Block" quilt.

Lots of different thread colors came into play, and keeping them organized was nicer than prior times because of the wonderful giveaway package Tanya (of Tanya Quilts in CO) sent me!

 

 

Check out that nice, over-sized needle book. The gorgeous blue one in a pic below is what I've been using - bought it from a lady in Latvia via Etsy, and I adore it - but it's rather small, and as I do a lot of hand applique, I always have several different silk threads on needles. The blue book's pages are so little, the threads hang all out and get tangled.

 

 

 

 

Well, When Tanya made this book, she used a nice size that resolved that issue. Also - check it out: She sewed the pretty flowers on the fronts of the pages, and tacked a loose-lying line of ricrac on the backs. So I can just pass my threaded needle up through that rickrack line and bring it over the top and secure it on the bottom of the wool page. The threads stay untangled and don't slop all out of the book.

 

 

 

 

I also find the cover-pockets super handy for my little embroidery scissors, a few pins, my ziplock baggie of berry forms and scraps for those, etc. And the matching pin cushion is such a happy place to put more pins and let the berry forms rest while I'm actively using them.

 

She even sent a little box of cake-chocolates (delish!) and the scraps from these projects.

 

THANK YOU SO MUCH, TANYA!!!!

You guys'll have to go check out the Woodland Alphabet quilt top she just finished and the  Journey of a Quilter BOM that she's stitching on  these days.  :)
 

***

 

So, the BOM work that I did today:

 

The September house is predictably a schoolhouse. When I was shopping for some apple and letter buttons, I found this super-fun nerd set instead. Kelly was, and her hubby and three sons are every one of them super-smart eggheads (a respectful term in our family). So this set is far more perfect on her quilt than normal elementary symbols.

 

 

 

I just love the little kid, and the molecule group was perfect for a little toy dog he'd built.

 

 

 

And seriously, if you know her son that I'll be sending this to, you'd know just why there was no way I could pass up a button pack that spells out BaZnGa in such a fun nerdy way with elemental chart components. :D

 

 

 

I also decorated the October block.

 

 

 

Kelly loved Halloween, so I decked this house all out for her. Ghosties, a spider on a web, dancing skeleton, bats, witch's hat. . . and I had a little fun embroidering stems on some of the squashes/pumpkins and putting straw coming out the arms and legs of the scarecrow. Oh, and let's give that crow some eyes and feet!

 

 

 

There! All ready for a party such as the one she went to with her hubby in 2008 (her next-to-last) - and check out that jello brain she'd made!  Kelly was super crafty that way!

 

 

 

 

I also did the November block. A few gourds and leaves and a cornucopia button wanted to go on. 

 

 

 

Hmmm. . .  I forgot to give the turkey some eyes and feet.  I'm tired of sitting right now, though, so that's going to wait until next month.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

Have you worked on any BOMs this past week or so?

BOMs Away Monday - 8 Apr - Kelly's Project & Dear Jane

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 this post.

First week of the month means it's time to work on Kelly's BOM for her. :)  I *finally* finished the 2nd section - the last 4 of 18 stars:

I also managed to get 7 Baby Janes caught up. 3 from the hand-stitching tote and 4 from regular paper piecing at the machine. 20 minutes each morning moves things along slowly but surely. Now this BOM is only 30 babies behind instead of 60. - Makes me happy.

And I also wanted to share these super fun pop-shut bags that I got from Shannon's giveaway from her blog, It's "Sew" Shannon. I met Shannon in February at a retreat, and she's very nice. So is her husband, who sports the most awesome handlebar mustache.

I love the bags! Going to use one to hold my grid-sewing labels, and the other to organize some marking tools that float around loose in my left-hand drawer. Very nice to have. Thank you Shannon!  :D

~*~*~*~*~ 

 What have you guys done on BOMs or interval projects lately? Weeklies are welcome along with regular projects that you’ve broken into monthly units, and –of course- true BOMs.   Share your eye candy and show off your progress since the last time you linked up! There are some wonderful monthly and weekly projects going on out there.  

WIPs - Sooooo Close to Two Finishes in My Sewing Areas, and Baby Start-up

Making bits and pieces of progress around my conference presentation prep - enough for me to smile about, even though it takes all week to do what many of you can whip out in a half day.  :D

I got this super cool pin cushion from Elizabeth's giveaway at Pieceful Life. 

My husband is happy, I'm sure, that pins are no longer getting plopped onto the side table to occasionally fall on the carpet (and sofa. . . )!  In Florida, my hand-stitching was done on an old cloth sofa that I shamelessly used the arm for poking pins into. These sofas are also quite old and worn (came with the house - we upsized and have no funds for a while to replace them), but they're leather, so I had to act normal with the pins.  ;D

And that's where I sit each evening, stitching, as we watch our dinner-time TV show. Love that lamp. My great-uncle Rudy made that himself, and it looks great in this Colorado home with wood trim.

This station right now is processing my Amaretto Cottage! (Isn't Margaret's quilting LUSCIOUS??) Hmm, and I guess nobody could get this monster handstitched in just a half day and do a proper job. So I feel a bit better. 

My Hawaiian Etude is also SOOO CLOSE! It gets secondary priority at this station - being bumped every time there's a binding/label/hanging sleeve to work on. But the king quilt is just a little large for taking to appointments and wait-times when picking up Marissa at school, so the Hawaiian piece is still making progress. This is the first time I've attached a binding 100% by hand, and I'm almost finished putting it on the front.

My other stations in the "basement" got a good workout this past week to get Amaretto Cottage to the hand-stitching station.

The house is on a slope, so really there's only one small room around on the back side that's a true basement area. I love this sewing nook!!  I fight SADD, so that window bank is awesome when I'm sitting at my FMQ machine in the white desk (it's a Viking Sapphire). You see 1/3 of the window bank.

Having both desks there is extremely helpful when I'm quilting - especially if the back is corduroy or minky. The golden one is an old computer desk that had a hutch. Well, we haven't had a non-laptop for years, and the hutch was just overbearing. So when we moved here and I verified that the desk matched my sewing table's height, I placed them together. I'd intended to buy a white folding table to put behind my sewing table, but Scott came to the rescue by cutting down the supports of the hutch to make it match up. Perfect!

This side is my piecing station, which actually had nothing at all at it last week (a rare occurance, but I really wanted Amaretto Cottage to get full attention).

While we're here - a view of the rest of my sewing area. The ironing board is purposefully several steps from the machines. Sitting for long periods is really bad for anybody, and especially bad for us folks with Lupus and poor circulation. So I make myself have to get up and walk a bit each time pressing is needed. That door next to the iron? The storage room! And it's all mine! It's got fabulous shelves built in aisles, and not much of it is non-fabric related. Heavenly. 

Behind me is the pool table and some more of the basement. Yeah - We're not finished unpacking. I'd wanted to keep all boxes and mess in the garage, but Florida Girl soon found that the space is critical for vehicle storage in Colorado winters! One day this will all look pretty.

Back to sewing concerns. For Amaretto Cottage's 112" squareness, I had to dismantle my piecing station.

See why?! And that's all bunched up and tripled-over on itself!

There's no way I could have worked with all that getting piled behind the machine without the added space of the hutch extension. 

 

Meet Lionel Stitchy.  Love this guy. He's a little squished there, but the college girls gave him to me for my birthday, specifically to keep me company while I sewed. (Thus his name. Am I dating myself?  heh!)

So - now that Amaretto Cottage is upstairs for handwork, my machines are both back where they belong, and I'm getting ready for the next FMQ. Practicing a motif Wendy Sheppard shared at Ivory Spring. That's plexiglass with duct tape around it. Perfect for dry-erase practice and quilt design fussing. You just have to make sure not to get that ink on the quilts. Thus the tape. And when I applied the tape, I made sure the front is wider than the back so that I always put the same side against the fabric. Just to doubly ensure that no faint smudges get on the quilts.

The piecing station will soon get some attention after its break. These 10" squares are my first foray with the the 8-in-1 method for HSTs. Need a baby quilt for my youngest sister's first-born, due next month. Going to make the barn raising layout and practice some FMQ in the white diamond bands.

Found this fun "Owl and the Pussycat" fabric in my stash, along with some other blues to play with it. And man, that bolt of Kona Snow I got 18 months ago is still saving me with this stash-only restriction! I've got a nice hardcover copy of the book on order - it even matches the coloring/theme of this fabric - very cool! I hope to also make a book tote featuring this fabric to go with the quilt and book.

Thanks for letting me sneak in some journaling. I really love this new home. 

~*~*~*~*~

Linking up at

Kate's "Share Your Space"

Lee's WIP

Applique Thursday

Esther's WOW

BOMs Away - 21 Jan - Beach Walk and Baubles from Nat

Welcome to my 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 this post.

Got "Whale Watch" for my McKenna Ryan "Beach Walk" quilt put together.  So cute.

And Scott put up a hook for me so I could hang these awesome knit baubles that Nat of Made in Home sent to me from England! Even though she had a brand-new beautiful baby boy! I was super impressed, beyond being impressed in the first place that she could knit these.

I just love having them hanging in the kitchen at the seating end of the bar. (Which is also my work space for fusible art blocks, heh!   

Hmm. . . wouldn't it look nice if I could put together a coordinating mini quilt to live under them? 

- - - - -

A note:

It seems that anything coming into the U.S. from Europe these days is taking an incredibly long time - 4 to 8 weeks - so hang in there if you're waiting for something. It may be delayed in customs and not lost.

~*~*~*~*~ 

 What have you guys done on BOMs or interval projects lately? Weeklies are welcome along with regular projects that you’ve broken into monthly units, and –of course- true BOMs.   Share your eye candy and show off your progress since the last time you linked up! There are some wonderful monthly and weekly projects going on out there.  

BOMs Away - Yeah! Getting Ruffled Roses into the Active Mix

Welcome to my 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 this post.

Well, it sure is nice to have weekly BOM hosting obligations to protect the opportunity for variety in my sewing. I have been exercising tremendous will-power the past few months in sticking so long to the projects that I've been finishing up lately. It's really rather remarkable. And many days I feel like I'm truly going to vomit if I have to look at those same projects one more moment. So the half-day per week of BOM work is a welcome reprieve. 

Last week I did finish cutting out all the Month 2 blocks for Kelly's project. For the two quilts, there are 18 of these stars to put together. Didn't get that far yet.

This week I finished up and set-in the center for my Ruffled Roses quilt! This is the 2011 BOM from The Quilt Show. 

One day it will grow up to look like this:

I started this applique center in October of 2011, but it was always intended as the lowest-priority fall-back in my portable stitching bag. As of now, that quilt is officially on my active BOM work list.  :)   

Did you see that fun spray of fat quarters above my block?  Friday afternoon I got the funnest box - a giveaway from Snoodles at Lily Pad Quilting, provided by her sponsor, fabric designer Jacquelynne Steves of The Noble Wife. 

I think I will leave it there by my cutting pad to percolate some ideas. It's perfect fabric for making something to go in our new home's kitchen! 

~*~*~*~*~ 

 What have you guys done on BOMs or interval projects lately? Weeklies are welcome along with regular projects that you’ve broken into monthly units, and –of course- true BOMs.   Share your eye candy and show off your progress since the last time you linked up! There are some wonderful monthly and weekly projects going on out there.