BOMs Away - "Strolling the Block" is quilted!!

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.

Wow! What a great sewing day for this week's Block of the Month work. It's a Kelly Week, so I pulled "Strolling the Block" back out. I've been looking forward to quilting that outer border, because its dark and busy print offers a fantastic backdrop to start practicing free-hand feathers in a wider setting than I've done yet.

I used Halloween party plates to mark the spine curve with a chalk pencil.

Then I drew in some curlicues.

As I started quilting, it quickly became painfully obvious that I needed Free-Hand Feathering Kindergarten. So I had to draw some feathers in, too. And clearly, that was not easy for me!! heh!

Fortunately, free-motioning things is easier for me than drawing things, once I get them into my head and hands. After 1/2 of the first side's first pass, I was ready to just draw in some guidelines, and not too long after that, I was ready to go completely free-hand. 

Which is not to say I graduated out of Feather Elementary School yet.  ;D  I need probably three more good learning projects like this to feel comfortable doing them where they'll actually show up, let alone with contrasting thread. And the kids' wedding quilt - it can be assumed that I'll be making stencils and tracing those out first, for sure!

But I got these feathers all put in down both sides of the spines much quicker than I'd thought would happen. And that gave me time to also get the binding made and attached - very exciting point to get to, since this has been in the works for over a year!

And now it's waiting in the curve of the sofa for some TV time with Scott, when I'll wrap it around with my binder clips. They live in that pretty little zip-bag that Stephanie at Simple Sewendipity made.

Navarre *loves* the musical clinking they make when he plays with the bag. He's always so polite and careful with it, too.

I love the fact that I caught him perfectly in a yawn.  :)

It's a strange concept to realize that next month I'll need to slip another project into the 1st-Sunday slot!

(Linking up at Cath's Design Board)

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How did things go at your end? - Did you do any work on BOMs this last week or so? 

Bloggers' Quilt Festival - "Love from Above for Emma" (Desire to Inspire pieces 1 & 2)

"Love from Above for Emma" 

designed and made by Lynette Caulkins

36 x 43 inches

cotton fabrics, Hobbs poly batting

free-motion quilted on a domestic Husqvarna Sapphire 875Q

Entered into the Small Quilts category of the 

Fall 2015 Blogger's Quilt Festival

Greetings! Those who have followed me for a while know that I have been finishing several projects over the years that my cousin had been working on when she died. Her physical heart gave out way too young, and she never saw the grandkids that she would have doted on shamelessly. My favorite photo of her is from way back in 1989, on my wedding day.

Well, I've also taken on the goal to make a quilt for each of her grandkids for her.

When her first granddaughter was born, I used a guild challenge to make a little quilt for Jaycee in Kelly’s memory. 

As you can see, "Hugs and Kisses from Above" had charm blocks along the bottom with appliqued XO’s tumbling down in front of some vertical mint waves. It connoted the idea of our loved ones continuing to be with us after passing over to the next existence.

I’ve felt bad the past year or so, because I never made a baby quilt for her sister, who is now two years old. So when the Henry Glass company sent me a bundle of “Miss Kitty’s Colors” by Marie Cole to use for my turn in their “Desire to Inspire” program, I opened that package and immediately knew the first item would be a quilt for Emma.

I wanted this to be similar in design, but with its own overall look. The super-cute block-based feature fabric in the collection was perfect for cutting steps out along the bottom, and being a collection of kitty-oriented prints with florals and stripes included, I had the idea to put a fun black cat romping after a ball of yarn. 

Shopping my stash for a good background had yielded a long-ago purchase of softly speckled light blue that played nice with the collection, so that was an extra addition. (Amusingly, that fabric just happened to be a Henry Glass fabric as well.) 

Kids love having their name on things, I’ve found, so I appliqued "Emma" at the top, giving it some strong blanket stitching like Kelly was fond of using. 

I used the quilting to include the idea of the wavy mint streamers and the XO’s that had been appliqued on her sister's quilt. I was really happy at how it tied the two different designs together in the concept of Kelly's love for them raining down from Heaven.

I paired the top with some pink Kona solid I had on hand and some Hobbs poly batting. 

And one of the paw-print selections from "Miss Kitty's Colors" made a perfect binding. Isn't that cute?

Since you just can’t send a gift out of the blue to one young child and not send something for a sibling, the second item I made from the collection was a cute child’s messenger tote for her sister, complete with her name appliqued, as well. I used this tutorial at the blog "Zaaberry": Kid's Messenger Bag Tutorial. Every fabric here comes from the collection.

I did choose to place her name inside the flap for child safety reasons. That also left the front flap free for the great feature fabric. I can picture Jaycee happily using this when they go to the library, or toting valuables around the house. 

Can't wait to put these in the mail this week!

And my real-live black cat, Navarre - ?  He approves.  :)

BOMs Away - WHY Have I Not Learned This Tucking Tip Before Now?!!

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.

(Gotta share this first before I put in my BOM work)

OK, Folks!  I have to figure out how to embed a YouTube video, because seriously, this technique for burying threads just rocked my world. I will never go back to my old ways. Another commenter on a blog post that I can no longer identify shared this link when somebody asked how people deal with keeping the threads in a self-threading needle while burying tails. Well, let me tell you, this method solves that problem completely, and gives you a great solution for the accidental too-short snips! It was so much faster than my self-threader needle.

(Incidentally, I found it very easy to simply use the needle to hook the tails through the loop into the lasso. I just tucked maybe 80 tails, and only needed to use my fingers to do so twice.)

No more fighting with a self-threading needle or threading every single set of tails into a needle to tuck them. My lasso needle is going to live permanently ready-to-go in my needle book! (See it there to the left of the sun? It is my new very best friend.)

OK, Now back to BOMs Away business.  This week was a Kelly Week, so I got some more FMQ work done on her "Strolling the Block." Namely, I finished quilting the last row of the center (which actually was the Jan-Feb-Mar row at the top). 

All that remains is the outer border. I'm looking forward to practicing large-scale feathers on it. Its dark color and busy calico print provide a perfect, forgiving, surface for building more confidence with those. Which I need before hitting the feather work on Devon & Kyle's wedding quilt!

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How about you? - Have you worked on any BOMs lately? 

TGIFF Hosting - Kelly's "Be Attitudes" is finished!!

Hi! Welcome to this week's "Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday" link-up! Have you finished something this week that you'd like to share? Link up at the bottom of this post, and be sure to visit a few links to help your quilting peers celebrate their finishes.  :D

I'm super happy to report a long-term UFO finish - my cousin Kelly's Be Attitudes quilt:

This is a Nancy Halvorsen pattern, and I'm guessing Kelly made the top in 2007, maybe 2008. It's one of the last quilts she worked on before she died. I've been madly quilting it up for a wedding gift to send to her nephew, since I know she would have made them a quilt.

This is one of my Q3 Finish Along pieces (My goal post link)

I love this quilt. It's a terrific example of the traditional side of things, with the calico-like fabrics and almost-primitive applique work. Kelly had the best hand-worked blanket stitches. They're so even, and she had a wonderful sense of scale with them. I stitched-in-the-ditch on all the black stitches, put some bits of detail-quilting on each block, then free-motion quilted the rest of the center with a leafy-ribbon sort of motif. 

This was the first time I pinned a binding on to attach it -
part of the effort to tame the waves spoken of later.

Borders got some strictly-organic free-motion work of leafy "feathers," ribbon swirls, and hearts. I had to stay away from anything linear because of squaring issues in the top's construction. I do all my quilting on my table-top domestic machine - a Viking Sapphire, to be precise. It's a dream for perfect tensioning. I used Aurifil 50 wt for most everything, except for some So Fine on the tan outer border.

I really should have taken off the last two borders, measured and trimmed them, and put them back on. They were wavy (because Kelly took to the "short-cut" method of just laying a strip of border fabric down as you sew and then cut it off at the end of your quilt), but not as much as the borders on her "Strolling the Block" had been. I thought I could work out most of the wave since I'd read about people doing that. I'd say that was about 1/2 successful. You can see, though, that some waves remain. Hopefully I can block more of that out after washing it tonight. But they'll show up again whenever the quilt is washed unless someone blocks it each time.

[Later Edit: Check it out! Blocking worked perfectly. At least for a little while that outer border is beautifully flat.]

Here are some block close-ups, just for fun. "Be Attitudes" is frequently done as a Block-of-the-Month. There are fun embroidery and button touches here and there.

This quilt finished up at 60 x 72 inches. I used a doubled Hobbs Tuscany silk batting that I'd prewashed very carefully. The puff factor is about the same as a single layer of Hobbs washable wool. It's got a softer drape, though. I really like it, although the expense of this batting will limit how often I can use it. I know just which quilt top will get it next, though!  

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Now it's your turn to toot your horn and let us help you celebrate a finish! Link up right here.  :) 

BOMs Away - 5th Sunday = Bonus Fun with Kelly's "Be Attitudes"

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.

[Is anybody else suddenly having a really difficult time getting photos uploaded for your blog?]

Hi, everyone! Did you enjoy having a 5th weekend for your monthly goals? I sure did. I used it to pull out one of the last of Kelly's quilt projects that I rescued for her when she died. She'd finished the whole top of the "Be Attitudes" BOM. I think it'll make a really nice wedding gift for a nephew of hers that I know she would have made a quilt for. He's done a lot to take care of my aunt (Kelly's mom), so he certainly deserves this. I know the couple with value her quilt, and they're quite religious, so a play on beatitudes will be up their alley.

I'm just in awe of Kelly's beautiful hand worked blanket stitching. She had a wonderful sense of scale for it, and the stitches are more regular than my machine blanket stitching ever turns out. 

But like her "Strolling the Block" top, I saw the signs that she felt her time was short and was racing to finish things. For example, the disregard for wandering seam allowances wasn't like her (I'm sure she ironed it from the front in a hurry). I got them all pressed down in proper order so ditch work would turn out nicely.

And here you can see on this top, again, the reason why you just DO NOT want to use the oft-promoted shortcut of simply laying an appropriately-wide strip of fabric down as you're sewing to add border, and then trimming off the end point. Always - ALWAYS - measure your quilt, then measure out the length of your border strips, and pin them on before sewing them to your quilt. Otherwise, you get these nasty waves on your borders: 

I'm going to try out a couple of fiddly methods that people have shared for taming these waves. The ones on this quilt are only about half or a third as bad as the "Strolling" waves were.

I sandwiched this top with backing from my stash and a double layer of a Hobb's Tuscany silk batting I'd purchased to try out. It was supposedly delicately washable, but I wasn't happy at all with the lacing effect that happened. You know what, though? Doubled over, it is marvelous! The hand on this is so nice, I know I'll buy a couple of queens next time I can catch it on sale so I can use it doubled on a quilt for myself. It's probably too dark of a cream, though, for a pure white-based top. Bummer, because the feel of it would be perfect for my Modernology top! Too bad it doesn't come bleached. . . 

I got some of the border ditchwork finished, but have to wait on threads for the other colors. My machine dislikes the colorless thread even more than I do, so apparently I can't use it. Doesn't seem to matter which brand I try. In fact, the bobbin winder is partly broken now from the hissy fit the machine threw about that thread last week when I was working on one of my McKenna Ryan minis. I can still make the winder work, but it needs to go into the shop to get 100% performance back. (It no longer moves up and down on its own to keep the thread winding on the entire height of the bobbin, so you have to use a pointer thingy to "wave" the thread height as it's winding.)

I did get half of the black-work done. And then I enjoyed some good movie time with Devon this afternoon to get those tails tied-and-tucked on all those separated letters! Check out that "nice" nest of tails on the January block: 

I worked for longer stretches than I normally do - trying to get this quilted up in time for the reception. There are a couple places where my attention wandered and I got some wobbles, like here on the bunny's ear.  :( 

But I was particularly happy with the detail work in other spots - like around the ant's legs. . . 

. . . And, Boy! Did I nail the dad's glasses that Kelly stitched on! Not a sign of my quilting stitches on top of her super-fine-line hand stitches. I really debated tackling those, so I'm glad they turned out so perfectly.  :)

Don't you love the blushy cheeks Kelly painted on? Wish I knew what she used for that. I really like the effect on this style of quilt. She did it on all the people in the quilt.

Going to have fun finishing this one up for her!~

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Have you worked on any BOMs lately?