WIP - Around Thanksgiving. . .

Forgive all my posts this week! Lots of catching up to do, still, and with complete changeovers at all my stations, it's fun to get a day's "snapshot" of what's going on at my quilting stations:

Hand Work Station - Stitching down the binding for my cousin's second Joseph Smith quilt! This will be a most satisfying UFO finish in several ways. 

Quilting Station - I was disappointed that I couldn't get to my "Plums in November" quilt before November is out, but it won't happen now that Thanksgiving is in gear and will occupy the rest of the month. So yesterday Heather helped me pin-baste the Laurel Burch Christmas Ornaments top - it's difficult to stop stroking the Kaufman fine-wale cotton corduroy backing I'm using for it!

Piecing Station - Idle at the moment since I cleared out the two tops in the last post, but not for long! Today I will iron the last of my pinks, and on Friday morning I am ACTUALLY PARTICIPATING in this year's Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt, "Grand Illusion" instead of jealously watching everyone else. Everything is from stash - another dedication this year to no new purchases at all (fabric or thread) for a project. 

And most apropros, I'll be using my new-to-me Featherweight. Its cost was only slightly higher than the repair on my Confidence would have been. It's so incredibly tiny!!! Every one of us was completely charmed by her when she arrived a few days ago, emerging from the excellent packing looking almost like an American Doll's machine! "Little Miss" was made in 1937. She only does straight stitches, but MAN are they perfection. She'll never break, being all metal, and I can service her completely myself as she's a straightforward machine with no computer parts and there are numerous detailed tutorials and videos online, with several places to order parts and supplies from. She needs more oiling and lubing, but will make it through the first day or two of mystery work until the rest of my supplies arrive.

Cutting Station - This week's explosion is getting cleared away immediately following this post, after some paper projects and a mail-delivered Christmas panel project for Heather to do invaded the space where I was trimming edges from leader-ender Boomerang pieces. The risers will also be taken out from under the table leg to prepare for this room's thrice-annual appearance as an actual formal dining room. . . 

. . . And tonight it'll be "risered" right back up again, all ready for my Friday morning gleeful dive into the Grand Illusion Mystery.

I hope all my U.S. quilting peers have a really nice Thanksgiving Day with family or friends!!

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linking up at WIP Wednesday

WIP - Binding, Masking, and FMQ

I haven't done a WIP post in forever. How fun to have time for one again.  :D

I **finally** finished all the clean-up work on my king-size double wedding ring a couple of days ago! That part alone took exactly 62 hours, and I started the process early in August. So now I "just" have to get the binding stitched down for a long-awaited special finish. This is my top priority project.  I'm 5/38 finished, and I figure it'll take about 16 more more movies to get all the way around. . .

Those points with their double inner angles and skinny acute tips are BUGGERS to fiddle with! And the only way to secure them well enough for sewing up is with straight pins. Makes for porcupine work if you don't pay careful enough attention when you shift around.  heh!

I just love looking at the quilting on this - wow, am I happy with it! And to think that I did it all on a mere domestic table-top machine...

Two other projects get almost-daily focus. When my fingers are just too tired from fine hand stitching, I go down to the machines and work on the FMQ for Kelly's second Joseph Smith quilt. Some of the latest work includes the vases and vines in the bow-tie area:

The third official WIP has to be kept completely off my blog and I can only sneak in short work times when both of two people are gone from the house. I keep a masking project on hand, ready to "throw" under my needle like a leader-ender project so I can snip off the chaining work of the real project and hide it away quickly. 

I'm getting very tired of only working on reproduction stuff UFO/NETY stash. Also, while it's absolutely gorgeous, my DWR has been in front-and-center position for 14 months straight, so I set aside the Thanksgiving wallhanging I'd been using for my masking project and pulled out this perky, far more modern project. 

I love my Boomerang fabrics!! They're a fun hodge-podge of scraps from my bin, old pieces from my stash, and brand-new fat quarters from a shop in the Springs. I started working on these back in February for a NewFO, but put them away at the end of that month as this project was not a priority. But it's perfect for lifting my "I miss moderns blues".  

Now they just need a side strip of white before I start laying them out for assembly. I love scrappy quilts!

And what a fun pattern to work with. It's by Emily Herrick over at Crazy Old Ladies. 

This is my second go-'round with the pattern. I made a smaller version with it as a baby quilt from my stash early in the year. 

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Linking up at

Esther's WOW

Leanne & Nicki's Scraptastic Tuesday

Lee's WIP

Marelize's ANYTHING GOES

BOMs Away - Crunch Time

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.

 

Hey there! Bear with me over the next 4 weeks if I'm a little slow getting this linky up or not as social as I used to be. It's crunch time for the final draft of my thesis to be turned in, and I've got 4 chapters remaining to fix up.  This is this week's task:

 

 

 

These last chapters are in my "Throw Down" stage, where all research and analysis notes are pasted into documents that are organized by divisions of information. Meaning, with the chapter for this week, there are 55 pages of such info copy/pasted as I worked with the individual items (and there are thousands of them) into an organized Word file under appropriate Navigation Pane headings. But when you get to each heading, it's literally a pool of individual items/thoughts that need to be logically ordered and then massaged into coherent paragraphs. I expect this one will finalize around 9ooo words, something like 30 pages.

 

Sooooo - I was busy yesterday finishing the clean-up of footnote formats in last week's chapter, and the sum total of BOM work I got done was quilting the maze work on the dark half of THREE ENTIRE log cabin blocks in Kelly's quilt!  Woohoo!!  ;D 

 

 

 

But hey, something is better than nothing.

 

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Have you done any work on your BOMs recently? Hope my U.S. friends are enjoying their Labor Day weekend!

BOMs Away & Colorado Balloon Classic

Welcome to the Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

 

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

This week's link-up is at the bottom of the post.

 

(BOM work in a sec - gotta journal some family fun first).

 

We had the best time yesterday! Scott and Marissa and I got up before the sun to drive down into Colorado Springs for the 38th Annual Colorado Balloon Classic. We wanted to catch this unique bit of fun in Memorial Park since it looks like it's the last time it'll be held here. Not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't an open free-for-all where crowds of people could literally walk right up inside the crush of densely-packed hot air balloon crews. Owners brought their balloons in pickup trucks and small trailers (sometimes just the trucks!), and they were literally being inflated within touching distance of each other. Some pilots didn't have enough crew members, so Scott and Marissa answered a call from the organizing staff to jump in. I would have been a superfluous helper, so I had fun catching snapshots of the process.

 

First you pull everything out - prep the basket, lay out the envelope, and then get to the big work.

 

Mr. Keller (owner and pilot) was very particular about the hoses being connected properly.

The entire envelope is in that canvas bag!

Hmm... not sure where the shot went of the top pulled out entirely -
it stretches out in a line maybe 20 yards long.

 Pilots "cold pack" the tops, which is blowing regular air into it first. As that is starting, folks up front hold the opening open, and folks in back attach the top to the top. (Don't know any more terms than "envelope.")  Somebody holds on to the tether line that is attached at the tip-top to keep the whole thing under control as the inflation process continues.

 

 

 

The fan behind Marissa is what fills the balloon in the first place.

 

Attaching the very top while the envelope fills

 

Once the balloon is full of cold air, the pilot oh-so-carefully sends jets into the opening to heat things up. It's amazing how fast the air in there responds, and very soon you control the tip of the basket as it all pulls itself upright.

 

 

 

 

Once the organizers remove the "hold" flag, the pilot gives a little boost to his hot air, and he's up - up - and away! 

 

 

Have a great flight, Mr. Keller!

 

 

What a great random adventure to be able to be a part of that process.  :D

 

Here are a few of my favorite shots after that. They had 80 balloons this year, and sent them off in two waves. Check out how the spectators are packed right in with the balloons once people really started arriving!  Also, you can see in some of the pics how the pilots love to come down and "kiss" the little lake in the park before re-ascending for the rest of their flight. Oh, and don't miss catching the crazy man sitting in a "Cloud Hopper." Two of those were there, and they just sit on a little aluminum chair instead of in a basket!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheshire has a tail, just out of sight -
hangs down almost to the basket!

 

 

It was a superb morning - definitely worth the too-early rise out of bed and the $10 parking we paid to get into the lot the Boy Scouts could use for fund-raising.

 

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So - for BOM stuff!  I didn't do much at all, cause the day at the Balloon Classic was too much fun and then I wanted a nap.  But I did do some hand work. 

The bottom of the first block for "Fiesta Mexico" is stitched now - that piece is over a yard long.

 

 

 

Navarre says to tell you it'll eventually have this design work stitched on it:

 

 

 And I hand basted the 48 berries onto the applique border for "Heart & Home."  But I didn't stitch them down yet - started to, but had to go take a nap!

 

 

 

Also, the second of my cousin Kelly's Joseph Smith quilts has been up to bat at the quilting machine for about 10 days. The stabilizing is finished and the stars are quilted.

 

 

 

The finish will be a lonnnng time coming, though - I only get two 20-minute quilting sessions per day as breaks in my thesis work, which is back at full-steam-ahead. Last semester!!

 

 

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Have you done any work on your BOMs recently? Hope my U.S. friends are enjoying their Labor Day weekend!

 

Two November Finishes - Kelly's 1930s & Kelly's Joseph Smith #1

I have two big finishes from Thanksgiving week to write up, both of which are Kelly quilts.

The first is her 1930s quilt.

She called this one "Egg Money Sampler," pieced it in 2006, and was largely finished hand quilting it when she died in 2008.   

I started working on this project of hers in earnest at the end of July this year. What you see to the left is the amount I needed to finish for her. It looks so small here, but it's really 18" by 97"!  I needed to trace the feather motifs for the white sashes and the feather wreaths for the corners from the other parts of the quilt. I did that with waxed paper and CAREFUL use of a sharpie. Then I could lay it under the top layer over a light and pencil it onto the top.

Kelly had been working it on a large frame, and I used a lap hoop. I had meticulously pin-basted the unquilted portion, hoping there wouldn't be a visible tension difference between her work and mine. There wasn't.  :) 

I know now that doing hand quilting is not my cup of tea, but I sure do love the concept! And looking at the back is soooo fun. Working on that red print made my eyes goggle every time, and while it's handy for hiding the skill difference between my work and hers, it doesn't show the feathers very well at all.

After all that work, I had to stitch her scallop border, which was a huge task in itself. No cheating and putting a straight finish, because Kelly had sewn the binding onto the scallops of the top before she started the quilting. Scalloped edges sure are nice, though, aren't they?  This quilt measures at 97 x 102 inches, and I'll send it out to her eldest son and his wife. 
     
These are some of my favorite blocks...

A Dresden:

Wish I knew this one's name:
(Thanks to Claire at KnitNKwilt for sharing that this is known as "Rocky Road to Kansas" per the Barbara Brackman encyclopedia.)

 

 

And on this one she quilted in the construction info:

 "Egg Money Sampler pieced 2006, quilted by Cheryl Vella 2007-8"

(She went by "Kelly" with relatives,"Kellene" with her mom, and "Cheryl" with everyone else.)

  

The second Kelly finish

... is the first of her two Joseph Smith quilts that she was doing as part of our personal BOM game (see the write-up for my Dragonfly Party quilts).

 

The style is totally not mine, but I really enjoyed doing this for her, and the stories behind the different blocks are a fun expression of her faith's history.

I started finishing the piecing of these two quilts for her at the beginning of this year. Most of it was left to be done, but she had already set aside which reproduction fabrics she wanted to be used for each of the months' block work. It's good that she did that, because we have entirely different tastes, and at the beginning, I could never have put things together the way she liked. My eyes want a lot more contrast between block elements and more cohesion in the overall color scheme. It was a real task at first working in her choices, but over time my eyes and brain started "getting it" and while I still wouldn't choose the style as my preference, I can work with it in peace.  :) 

It's funny, because when I ordered batting for these, I ordered my non-wool favorite of the 80/20 Hobbs Heirloom blend. Two days later I kicked myself, thinking I should have gone with 100% cotton instead, since all her fabrics are period-appropriate. You know what? For the first time, the shop messed up and accidentally sent 100% cotton instead of the blend! I just love serendipitous things like that. Em calls them Godwinks, and I'm inclined to agree.

Kelly was strongly traditional in her quilting preferences, so she would have chosen a traditional all over quilting or ditch work on everything. While I worked hard to stick to her fabric choices on the blocks she had not yet pieced, and shopped for borders in period-appropriate fabrics that would have reflected her color style, I made her a deal on the quilting: I would go with the free - motion custom work I love doing, but would base everything on cultural and architectural motifs from that period of her church's history.


I'm super happy with how it all came together!

Once the quilt was stabilized, I started in the body of the gift part. I marked lines alternating 6" and 4" down the section and then wrote in lyrics on the larger spaces from the LDS song, "Praise to the Man." It's particularly nice that the end of the lyrics I used includes "Death cannot conquer that hero again," because LDS folks place strong faith in seeing their loved ones in the afterlife, and my aunt (to whom I'll send this quilt) has had to bear the loss of her husband and 3 of her 5 children due to a congenital heart problem. I stitched these lines in a 28 wt cream Aurifil, top and bobbin. 

(It's easiest to see the alternating effect from the back.)

(Let me interject a note to folks unfamiliar with Mormons - they worship God the Father through Jesus Christ. They do not worship Joseph Smith - rather, they revere him and his initialization of their restored faith. It's quite different from the Catholic worship of Mary and canonized saints, as they do not pray to Smith, but only to God.) 

Back to the center of the quilt...

In the narrower lines between those lyrics, I free-motion quilted a pictorial representation of another song commemorating Joseph's visitations, "Oh, How Lovely Was the Morning." I used an alternation of trees for the grove and a beaming sun. This is done in a tan So Fine, top and bobbin.    
 

 

 

Next I tackled the green stop border. It had been ditched during stabilization with a green Guterman thread I had and a So Fine tan bobbin. Now I free-motioned an adaptation of a spiral motif in the architecture of the Kirtland Temple, using the same thread combo as the ditching. Kirtland was the first temple built by the LDS, and Smith was instrumental in its design and ornamentation.

Next I moved to the gift bow/crown portion of the interior. 

First I put in the inner division line to accentuate the larger shape created by the placement of the light/dark halves of the log cabin blocks. Then I ditched the stars and put a symbol in their centers that Smith used for the Melchizidek priesthood.

On either light side around the stars, I quilted in some leafy vase vines very loosely based on a tree of life in a vase in the Kirtland architecture.

In the center light portion, I put in some gold plates and the sun, moon, and star symbols that were so ubiquitous in the early LDS symbology. For all of the light section, I used a tawny gold Aurifil with the tan So Fine bobbin.

In the dark area (seen above the triangle in the last picture) I echoed the division line, then free-motioned continuous mazework since mazes appear frequently in the Kirtland architecture. Dark brown Aurifil with the tan So Fine bobbin.

 

It was finally time to move to the outer border. Here I chose to go with larger figures from architecture. I printed images from the Internet, stapled then on top of stacks of Golden Threads quilting paper, then traced the outlines by free-motion work with no thread. Voilà!  Templates for both quilts!

 

 

 

 

 You stitch right through the paper, which is easy to pull off afterward. It's a wee bit sturdier than gift tissue - maybe halfway between that and waxed paper.

 

 

At the center of each of the four quilt sides, I put in the sunstone image from the Nauvoo Temple. This was the second one they built, and although it was not completed before Smith was martyred, he was instrumental in its designs.  I used a silver variegated rayon King Tut I found in my thread stash, with a light gray Aurifil bobbin. This is the bottom one. The others are oriented with the chin at the green stop border.

 

 

On the bottom corners I quilted in the original Angel Moroni statue for the golden weather vane on the Nauvoo temple. 

In the upper corners I pulled in the later upright gold Angel Moroni steeple statue that is familiar to today's LDS congregations.

On all of these I suffered through the nasty tension and breakage issues of a Coats and Clark metallic gold thread with a bright gold Aurifil bobbin thread. My machines did NOT like that metallic thread one single bit. Definitely have to buy a different brand next time that's designed for quilting.

The final task was to put in the border's fill between these motifs.  I used the dark brown Aurifil/tan So Fine combo from before and put in slanted lines that used the angle of the lines on the bottom of the Nauvoo sunstones. I just chalked those in with my rulers and then free-motioned them. I really like the effect of the slight wobbles rather than a strictly straight effect I would have gotten if I'd switched over to my walking foot. Something about it just fits better for this instance.

 

 

So - I still have the second twin of Kelly's Joseph Smith quilts to pin baste and quilt. Since I detailed the quilting here, with that one's report I'll share the fun history backgrounds of the blocks the designers chose to use.

 

I'll do that in January, and will send it to her brother. He's also very devout in their religion and loves church history. But her mother gets this first one as soon as I get a photo file from Kelly's husband and print out a label, just in time for Christmas! I'm also going to take all the block stories (they came with each month's pattern) and have them spiral bound together into two sets to send with the quilts.

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Linking up at

 

FMQ Friday

TGIFF is at Quokka Quilts this week

(main site here)
 

Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!

Link-a-Finish Friday