Whoop!! Whoop!! Whoop!! Once Upon a Time is Checked Off! 17 in 2017 is finished!

Yes!!  I just finished tying and tucking the last tails on the seals. . .

and the walrus sleigh block. . . 

Probably 5/6 of the applique stitching has been finished while doing the trapunto work. The remaining stitching will be simultaneous with the quilting. There are a couple embroidery tasks to happen after quilting, too.

And now that all the trapunto work and pre-quilting stitchery is finished on my "Once Upon a Star," that means I've successfully met my 17 in 2017 challenge!

And I can't tell you how much lift of burden I felt to have this stage completed on this project! It is what has held it back for quite a long time.


A quick recap for my challenge: I'd listed 17 UFOs that I wanted to advance a stage during this past year.  Of those, 4 were completely finished, 4 are ready to be finished on the longarm, and 4 are now flimsies. At least six of them would not have been touched at all this year were it not for this challenge. 

I also accomplished: 10 other finished quilts, 4 other flimsies, 5 other significant advances, and my first customer job (custom longarm quilting).

So I'm really looking forward to the 18 in 2018 challenge helping me get a lot more finishes that might otherwise stagnate! It's surprising how much that challenge helps, even when you just expect a step or two to be done instead of a finish. Between that and the 6 & 6 challenge letting new things in, it's going to be a fun year.

~*~*~ Linking at:

TGIFF at Kathy's this week
Sarah's Whoop Whoop Friday
Meredithe's 17 in 2017

BOMs Away - Christmastime

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.)

Hi! We are mostly geared into finishing our holiday bedecking and getting ready for out-of-town company here. It's a fun, busy time of year.

I did get bits of work advanced on this old Christmas BOM during the early mornings this week. About 2/3 of "Once Upon a Star" has now had its trapunto-applique stitching put in.

Although, the polar bears and whales all need the batting trimmed away and tails tied & tucked behind, like the penguins have had done. . . 

Hope you're having a good time these days - Any progress on BOM type projects happening for you?

~*~*~

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.

WIP'n along and Whoop'n it up

Woohoo!!!   This is #16 on my 17 in 2017 list, so I know now that I can check them all off by year's end.

Devon's quilt has quite a bit of quilting that was done on the domestic. There is a lot left, though, and much had to be done to prep it for the longarm. 

Something like 250 pins have been taken out of the blue area, all the hundreds of tails are tied and tucked, backing is squared, and spacers are sewn onto the three narrow sides (I anticipate wanting to turn this quilt for easier border work.) This is a large queen quilt.

I did all the marking yesterday on the Sapphire Stars Mystery quilt that I'm finishing as a special QOV for my father-in-law. I made the USAF stencil the old-school way by printing the right size onto cardstock and wielding an X-acto knife. Also cut the border elements out of a cereal box (some day I'll have star rulers for longarms, but for now it's old-school).  I got about 1/2 of the stabilizing done on the longarm before night's call. Hopefully this afternoon I can finish that up and start on some of the fun work.

And my early-morning attention is currently on puffins and penguins - they're maybe halfway finished getting their trapunto work.  :)   This FMQ work still happens at my domestic machine for two reasons: 1) I don't have nearly enough fine control yet with my longarm to do close-edge applique quilting with so many tiny details; 2) Quilting through multiple layers of fusible can be really tricky even without fine-control issues. I'll be waiting until I have a lot more experience with my longarm and its reaction to various threads, fabrics, and pop-up issues before putting any fusibles on it.

~*~*~
Linking to:

Lorna's Let's Bee Social, 

Sarah's Whoop, Whoop!

Meridithe's 17 in 2017

BOMs Away - Once Upon a Star; also Martha's Holiday Spin

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've had a fun weekend of working on Christmas projects. For BOM work, I pulled out a McKenna Ryan project that I've only ever enjoyed working on. No problems with this one.  ;D

"Once Upon a Star" is getting trapunto work while I do all the stitching of the many-many fusible pieces, as well as of embroidery on the main elements before it will be quilted. Without that, the fusible applique just stays so flat and disappointing to me. Photographing this project is disappointing, too, because it's so much prettier in real life than I can get the camera to show. 

I've got the cute baby seal finished, and aren't those whiskers fabulous?

And I did the central scene with Santa and company. 

The star got stitched with a holographic silver thread - super pretty!! But it doesn't begin to show from the camera's point of view, so you can't see how terrific the effect is.

I've got the puffins ready to go for next time. Their 3-D stocking with its fish lives in a bag in my scissors drawer. This quilt will be entirely finished and on my wall the day after Thanksgiving next year!

And earlier in the week, I pulled a Christmas UFO out of the closet. It's not a BOM, but I was in the mood.  This one needed all of its border work. I got that finished up yesterday. It's queen size.

The colors are a little better in this indoor shot - lots of really great quilting potential in this one! 

I would like this to be a fun Christmas in July finish when I have more longarm templates to play around with.

~*~*~

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 - 19 Nov 2012 - Once Upon a Star Flimsy!!

Welcome to my Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

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

Yeah!!  Look!  :D   Once Upon a Star is finally a full-fledged flimsy and transferred from the BOM list to the quilting-needed list!!

One problem - look at this spot! I'm not sure how to get it out. I carefully washed with dish soap, but it must be ironed in there.  

Any ideas? I thought I might dilute a little bleach and gently swab at it with a Q-tip, then rinse it carefully and fanatically.  But I decided I'd wait and see if any of you have much better ideas. Then I can address the edge that's lifted up despite the super-careful washing.

~*~*~

And if you haven't seen them already, take a glance at my most recent post and let me know if you'd like any of those patterns I'm giving to new homes.  :)

~*~*~*~*~

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. :D

WIP Wed - 14 Nov 2012 - Let's Get Santa Scooting!

I'm busy at work on the patchwork border for my Once Upon a Star project. 

^ Those are going around this:

And I've started a brand new project!!!  I am so very ready for something NEW! And this is totally new, not from my UFO list.

It's qualified, though. I'm on a serious mission to sew up the 400 Gazillion projects I already have, so I have a strong rule about buying anything outside of what is needed for current projects. But somebody had this totally cool Santa scooter fabric at their Etsy shop when I was purchasing a sweater for our freezing cat, and there's a very special reason why it had to get to our house. So I bought it under strict conditions. The rules: It MUST become its destiny this Christmas; It MUST be used ONLY with existing stash; and the project MUST break a quilting "rule."

So I mulled over a design and then combed through my holiday tub. The black and just a smidge of gold will frame off the scooter fabric and make some other design elements. 

These greens will create a rule-breaking background. The burgundy-red is actually a fine-wale corduroy for the back. Not exactly rule-breaking, but unusual and warm. No way I'd use it if I were going to free-motion quilt this project. But I'm planning simple organic lines with a walking foot for almost all of it, so it should be OK. The metallic gold-gridded black will be used for the binding.

The whole thing on paper is rather reminiscent of Santa's belt and buckle somehow. Just wait 'til you see it in a week.

SOOOOO antsy to get this sewn up!!  :D


Thank you to Lee and this week's host for facilitating this motivational link-up!

BOMs Away Monday - 12 Nov '12 - Yeah! Getting there!

Welcome to my Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

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

First of all, Thank You to my husband, his brother, and all our friends and extended family who are serving or have served in our armed forces. I hope you're having a great Veteran's Day weekend!!

My hubby's last deployment was at Camp Alamo in Afghanistan

Love this shot of him, but it sure gave me mixed feelings!!  lol

This was a super happy BOM week. :D

Got the LAST character block fused. "Decked Out for the Holly-Days" turned out a lot cuter in real life than I thought it was going to be.

Did up the snowflake filler block yesterday and sewed the quilt center together this morning!

Now I just need to do the patchwork border. That's good, because I've passed my tolerance level for time spent on a given project.   ;D  heh!

~*~*~*~*~

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. :D

BOMs Away - 5 Nov 2012 - Once Upon a Star - Happy Birthday, Devon, and Halloween Fun

Welcome to my Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

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

"Sealed With a Twist" was a far simpler block than most of the Wish Upon a Star blocks, so I got the whole thing done up this week.  :)

This Monday is our second daughter's 19th birthday. I worried that she might see the quilt  from the last post that we brought up for her, and think "Oh, great - another one." (Because she already has two Mom Quilts up at her dorm room.) But what she said was "Oh, cool! I wanted to ask for another one!" She was cute as bug for Halloween: 

In case you wondered, yes - insects can be zombified, too apparently.

In another state, her older sister and friends had a blast putting together Avenger costumes.

Heather did an amazing job on her Loki outfit this past summer.

And I forgot to share one of our pics from our earlier trip to St. Louis, which is silly - because this crowd can really appreciate a humorous yarn-bombing. This is Barry Flanagan's much-loved statue, "Thinker on a Rock," which he has loaned to Washington University in St. Louis. 

Somebody did a terrific job knitting him a vest. They even used a huge gauge to keep it in scale with this 12-foot intellectual!

And a final thought - My Dad and his wife are enjoying a tour of China. Wouldn't this dragon make a great quilting study?

~*~*~*~*~

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. :D

BOMs Away! 29 Oct 2012 - Holy Mackerel

Welcome to my Link-Up for BOMs Away Mondays!

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

Apologies to our Eastern Hemisphere friends. I usually post these on my Sundays so that those on the front end of the globe have it up for Monday. I wanted to leave the TGIFF hosting post at top billing for our whole weekend here. 

But now let's get a move on with our BOM/interval projects! It's a difficult time of year to keep those going. Have you done any work this last week on yours?  

I did get Holy Mackerel completed for Once Upon a Star. Love its 3-D stocking and silver fishies.  :D

We also took a road trip to St. Louis (13 driving hours - yeesh!) so we could visit our oldest daughter at her college for Parent Weekend. Had a blast watching her symphony concert and playing like little kids at City Museum.  :D

That place is  F - U - N, FUN!!

~*~*~*~*~

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. :D