BOMs Away - Forever My Valentine, and a couple more

 

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)

Another weekend of BOM work at the machine.  :)

I bet this one thought it would never see the light again! I pulled out "Forever My Valentine" for attention, and realized it had been set aside even before I got Covid, because I had run out of some of the thread colors. 

So I put in an order for the needed thread colors, and since I couldn't do one block from start to finish, I got the base layer of the remaining 5 blocks prepped.

This is a pre-fused laser cut project. I don't like an unnecessarily insane buildup of fabric and fusible layers, so before I fused the large pieces down, I traced their position on the background fabric and cut out the inside of them, leaving about a 1/3 inch allowance. 

Used a milk pen, since this is black flannel.
The innards under the heart are cut out,
letting the applique ironing sheet show in the opening.

Just make SURE you have a Teflon applique sheet under the opening when you iron the pieces over the opening, because the fusible covers the entire open space, and will fuse into your ironing board cover if you don't use a protector sheet!

When I do my own fusible prep work, I cut out the guts of any large pieces so that if I cut away any background fabric from behind them, this won't be an issue. Also, it makes your fusible go MUCH further in a project. 

After that, I fused the next working layer onto the bases that I was able to complete the stitching for, so every remaining block is ready to go again once the ordered threads arrive.

Also, I've been using the Bag-of-the-Month project, "Feathered Goose," as a leader-ender project when I do priority piecing work. The final pieces for Bag 2 just needed their last seam put in, so I whipped those through last night:

And . . .  During TV time tonight, I'll finish the last tiny bit of stitching on Block 7 of Octopuses Garden. So I'll add that image soon.

Night lighting is a little weird on this.
It will get significant embroidery details
when I do that part.

If I feel as decent tomorrow morning as I did today, I am going to start easing in some longarm work - just one 30 minute session as a trial, and if that goes well, I'll do a morning and an afternoon session the rest of the week. Cross your fingers for me! My poor Halloween quilt has been loaded on the frame for at least two full months, waiting for attention, and I'd *really* like to also get my Once Upon a Star quilted up before Christmas Day.

~*~*~*~

Have you been able to do any BOM type work lately? We'd love to see it.  :)

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 - Another Loss, and some Turtles

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)

Sorry to be late. We are reeling here. Scott's father has now also passed away from Covid and ensuing pneumonia (contracted at the funeral for Mom). I don't even have any words for this, or for the family turmoil we are all feeling. I would say this: Think long and very hard before having any funeral or memorial service during this surge in the pandemic. Too many attendees will be medically vulnerable to the disease, and you can't know who may be carrying it, or whether it's present in the facilities.

I am still actively sick. It was overly optimistic to think I'd be able to start back into any creative work that demands more energy than hand stitching. And so, I have another Octopuses Garden block finished - Block 5, with the turtles wreath. 12" finished block.

Ready to go up on the wall until the full set is put together - then I'll pull each one down and do the embroidery work on it. This one gets fun coral "things" stitched in, with what I believe are called bullion stitches. Also, a few little details on the turtles, oysters, and starfish.

Here's what this quilt will grow up to look like:

That will be at least a couple years more. I have this much appliqued so far: 

I do sincerely hope that you stay well, and that your families come through this pandemic whole.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

BOMs Away - 2020 means. . . COVID

 

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)

So, Scott and I both have COVID. So does his father, and the timing indicates that we all got it at the funeral for Scott's mom - either from someone there, or in the funeral home or the hall where Dad had a post-funeral luncheon. His father was taken to the hospital yesterday and can have no visitors; I had to go on steroids yesterday, but no ER or ICU, and am at home; Scott, as usual, while he is sick, hasn't been hit as hard as it got me. I am very grateful for that. I find it surpassingly strange that Nebraska does not do any contact tracing. We did our best to get word to all the elderly and medically susceptible people who were also there.

Be careful, everyone, particularly where vulnerable people are concerned.  :(  We are eating aggressively healthy from the moment we suspected we might be getting sick. GONE: sugar, coffee, chocolate. GONE: all dairy, all processed carbs. MOSTLY CUT OUT: salt. With COVID, days 8/9 will tell on whether it is going to hard-crash on you or not. (You start your count on the first day of your symptoms.) The greatest factors contributing to a dangerous crash: smoking. diabetes. advanced age. overweight. high blood pressure. pre-existing medical conditions. So you want to eat a diet that doesn't exacerbate blood pressure, blood sugar surges, or inflammation (thus all those "gone" items).

Every day, we eat fresh-made clear-broth soup loaded with veggies and usually chicken, sometimes a wee bit of beef. Toss in copious amounts of fresh onion, garlic, lemon grass, ginger, turmeric - all natural aids in medicinal boosts. Most likely, your smell is going to be 100% gone, anyway, so the extra onion/garlic isn't going to bother you a smidge. 

Eat plenty of citrus. The natural unprocessed sugar in these is not going to hurt you, particularly since you're not eating bad carbs right now. The vitamins are going to help tremendously, and if you slice lemons and pour hot water onto them (no sugar!), and drink this 2 or 3 times a day, it does a really good job of cleaning out your throat for you and reducing the coughing for a while. Some say it also reduces the viral load your body is having to deal with by washing a good portion of it out of your upper respiratory system. Not sure how much of that is reliable, but, hey. Can only help, not hurt, so I'm all for it.

And roasted veggies with paprika or turmeric sprinkled liberally are great for your other "big" meal of the day. Seriously, as sick as you feel, and as good as this diet hits the spot right now, you're not going to miss the things you've cut out. Although, I'm sure when I feel good again, some hot salmon dip and crackers will be nice. . . or some hot cocoa next time it's snowing . . but right now, no.

I've only had enough energy to do wee bits of hand work on some days. Usually I'm just a zombie staring at the TV if I'm not all the way down in bed. There was only a little bit left to finish Block 6 of my Octopuses Garden project, so I finally have this one to share:

If I weren't so sick, still, I'd be quite excited. That puppy has been in my TV applique tote for AGES. It has four hundred thousand layers.

My method is back-basting, and I absolutely love doing fun inter-layered portions like the curl of the seahorse's tail. It means a dual approach of two different fabric pieces, kinda like braiding. Very satisfying when you finish it.

These blocks also have embroidery on them, but their work greatly exceeds my patience level. So I'm appliqueing all of them in the first go-'round, and then I'll come full circle and do the embroidery.

But now, I am going back to bed. Sorry to be late with this posting. I was too sick yesterday to even think of beginning a post - didn't even realize what day of the week it is. But I'm looking forward to seeing what others have accomplished.  :)

~*~*~*~

Have you been able to do any BOM type work lately? We'd love to see it.  :)

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 - Hello! (Home from the cruise)

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.)

Boy, I'll tell you what - traveling really does a number on those of us with immune syndromes! Sorry to be late with this week's link up. It took me a full week to get myself back together after having an absolute blast on our 2-family cruise. I've only done tiny smidges of hand stitching BOM work in the past two weeks. I was having so much fun with family on our sea days, that I only accomplished this much work on my Octopuses Garden blocks:

This is as it should be.  :)

and after a week of being home, I only have this small set of pieces for Devon's Dahlias finished up for something to share:

But let me tell you - Caribbean cruises have the absolute BEST excursions you can go on.

We interacted with sea turtles and swam with and fed sting rays at Grand Cayman,

Super fun snorkeling in this lagoon habitat at Cayman Turtle Center -
I had one turtle swinging alongside me for several minutes, just hanging together. *love*

This is Stingray City, a sandbar offshore where dozens and dozens of stingrays come see the people
Photo actually taken four years ago, but we went back to this excursion
because it was so great and we wanted to see Pat and his sister experience this.

We toured Roatan Island off of Honduras and snorkeled its coral reef (some of us scuba'd)

Note to self: 

I'd love to spend a week at the currently-inexpensive resort and dive center at Anthony's Key off of Roatan, right next to the ****coolest**** dolphin research center/habitat that I've ever seen. 

The dolphins could clearly leave the enclosure any time they wanted to jump out, and they open all the gates every two days, anyway (it's not walled from the ocean in the first place, simply large-bore rope-netted), so the only dolphins in the enclosure doing tricks for people and giving encounter rides are those that WANT to do it. That is why, even though the shows are not as fancy and choreographed as you'll find at Sea World, etc., this is the absolute coolest dolphin place I've ever seen.

Pretty amazing. We watched workers entertaining the newer volunteer dolphins that were still untrained with hula hoops, balls, and trick lessons if they wanted to do that, so that the dolphins who'd come often enough to have the training to interact with people could do their thing unimpeded. 

We climbed on ancient Mayan pyramids in Belize,

sitting on the side of The High Temple at Lamanai, Belize

The Mask Temple at Lamanai, Belize

On top of the world at Lamanai, Belize

. . .and we went spelunking along an underground river at the Riviera Maya on the Mexicn mainland from Cozumel - 

Rio Secreto is AMAZING

The astonishing thing is that eating like PIGGGGS the entire week long, I only gained 6 pounds once the travel edema worked its way out after being home two days. Which is good, since I've been extremely foolish with mopey eating the last 6 months and had 20 pounds I already wanted to start taking off.  So, why is it so very hard to take weight off while eating properly and exercising??!!  ha! 

~*~*~*~

How did you do with your BOMs while I was away?

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 - Octopus Garden

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.)

Here's the finished applique work for Block 4 of my Octopus Garden BOM:

~*~*~ 

What's happening on your end? 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 - the Black Belt edition

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 survived! - Man, that was hard. Like really hard. 

But look what I have to show for it!

I wouldn't have made it through the test without the super-attentive help of my classmate, Linda Silveira, who kept bringing me water and icing my neck and head down. It was super close, making it through Black Belt testing with Lupus stuff flaring up. When I took my socks off for warm-ups, my feet were black, not just blue, and from the start I was struggling through phenomenal fatigue, sweating so much by ten minutes in that one of the two docs at the first aid station was seriously scared that I was having a heart attack. He just about not only pulled me from testing, but also almost called the ambulance. Fortunately for me, Linda was the other doc and is very familiar with what it's like for me when a flare is hitting, as is our school's Master. So she talked the other doc into relaxing and letting her help me through it. So far, haven't found anyone who caught a picture of her helping me out. I totally felt like a football player with personally-dedicated support staff - LOL.

We figured out that she refilled my water canteen four times, so during the 2.5 hour test, I drank at least 90 ounces of water! And zero talk from my bladder. That's how much sweat was just streaming through me! 

It wasn't pretty, but it got done!
Here we were starting to work Poomsaes after almost two hours
of sparring formulas and self-defense.

If Chanda is able to get the video file to me successfully that shows me doing my compulsory board breaks, I'll add it in here.

I did make it through the final test (yesterday was the culminating event of six weeks of the testing period) and managed to do my duty as the appointed class speaker. 

Even when the mic cut out and I had to project for
the whole City Auditorium on my own.

I was given the very special WooSong Award, and I hadn't expected that. It is the DaeSabumnim's award, who is a really big deal in the Taekwondo world both in Korea and the U.S., so I feel a deep sense of honor to receive it.

Three and a half years to get here! So thrilled to do it with both my youngest daughter, 

and my hubby!

As my cousin said: "The family that kicks together - sticks together!"  heh!

With our Sabumnim on the left, Master Jay Kuk Lee, and Pejo Sabumnim on the right, who is his senior. He heads a sister dojang but is always at every one of our belt tests, so we feel doubly honored to get our photo with both of them.

It all produces big smiles when your breath is caught up. 

And today while resting, I got most of a fishy put together. Still needs a fin and a spot and an eye, but already cute.

So, what have you got going on at your place? Thanks for putting up with a journaling page. You can see that quilting work was back seat this week, as you can probably imagine lots of extra practice went on all week before the big event. I hope all is well, and look forward to the sharings of BOMs projects happening out there!

~*~*~ 

How about you? 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 - Octopus Garden & Fiesta Mexico

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.)

So, in 6 days I will be an official Badass.  ;D 

Black Belt testing gets closer and closer, classes get longer and more intense, and somehow my system is still just hanging in there. The bed rest stuff along with specific and strict dietary strategies seems to be working well enough to get me through it all. And that makes me happy. I really didn't know if I'd make it this far!

We had to go through our old pictures so they could put together a class video. It's been a fun memory walk.

 Here I am at my first belt test, breaking my very first board:

Board breaking quickly became a favorite event for me, even when I was on crutches.

This was at the US Open Hanmadang when I was a Brown Senior. Being recently injured and not knowing what I could do since I had to start from a crooked, off-balance crouch instead of a full-height downstroke, I broke only one board in the Downward Power Knife Hand event. I ended up getting first place (snicker), because no other women in the 45-50 age bracket for upper color belts registered to do it. You can break your hand if you do it incorrectly, and many folks our age don't want to take that risk. But hey, without that actual break I would have just been thanked for competing.  :)

And this was at our Master's Challenge later that year when I was a Red Belt.

Check out that capture of the wood starting to break! 

(Yes, I broke all 3 inches):

 

All that down time that my body requires for the six-week testing gauntlet for Black Belt is great for my quilting hand work projects, though!

These are all needle-turn applique, using the back-basting technique.

I finished Block 3 for my Octopus Garden quilt. So many *skinny* legs for the lobsters!

These are 12" blocks:

And then I finished the next stage of Block 6 for my Fiesta Mexico quilt.

This block is like a Round Robin quilt in its own right, and is currently 22 inches square. It has one more round of substantially appliqued white corners to be added on:

Both of these quilts also have embroidery on each piece, but I'm doing that later when all the blocks are appliqued and I can keep some good consistency on the stitching.

~*~*~ 

How about you? 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.