Finish Report - "Tootsie and Rumples"

Yes! This super sweet duo is my second finish this year, and the first UFO in a busy line up on my 17 in 2017 list. We're talking long-term UFO, as I pieced these back in Feb 2011 - these poor mini quilts never made it to the priority spot until their roll call for UFO attention. But here they are now!

"Tootsie and Rumples" is the final mini quilt from my Sea Breeze series. Now that I have them all finished, I can look for lessons on assembling art frames and stretching the quilts onto them. They're all about 16 X 16 inches, and I'll use 13" frames.

I really, really love how the trapunto worked out on all of these, giving terrific dimension to the creatures.

How I handled that: After fusing the blocks, I stitched down only the parts that would not get trapunto work. Then I layered poly batting under the creatures, and stitched those fused pieces. I didn't use any backing for this, and had zero problem with the batting being against the machine surface with dogs down and a Glider sheet in place. Sometimes I reserved appropriate creature areas for a second (and in the case of the puffer fish, a third) layer. I used permanent threads to match the colors of the pieces - no soluble bobbin work on these, and then super-carefully trimmed the excess away.

Last, I sandwiched the final quilt set-up and used a mixture of colored threads and invisible threads to quilt the outlines of the creatures and the backgrounds.

As with the others, this one had fun bead work:

Aren't Mama and Baby just so adorable?

Nothing like two rapid-fire finishes to really get you back into your groove after a long hiatus from your quilting. :)

Now for the next one, which is a much, MUCH larger job. . . 


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I'll be linking up at:

Meridithe's 17 in 2017

Muv's Free Motion Mavericks

Sarah's Whoop, Whoop Linkup

TGIFF, hosted by Fiona this week

WIPs Be Gone!

BOMs Away Monday - More for Scott's Row & Snooty Sisters beaded

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.

Hi there! No "Wind in the Whiskers" this month. I was working on the fusible applique for Scott's quilt rows and playing cards with the family instead.

I got 3 of the 5 settings done up today. 

Morning-After update: Now all 5 vignettes are fused down, and the scrap explosion is getting CLEANED UP! I really wanted the texture-print of the lower fabric on the Afghanistan mountain over on the right side, but it's a little too light. I'll be playing with a way to do a color wash on it with some fabric paint. The tons of detail-stitching needed on it will wait until January for attention.

I am always surprised at how much more time these things take than you think they will. Significantly more! Check out the bitty posters, though, that I resized and printed onto fabric:

They're not fused onto the background yet - need to get the last two made so I can double check the spacings. 

Friday I got the birdhouse applique work finished and fused down.

 I haven't done any of the stitching for these yet. But I did get the rest of my scraps sorted out. Still need to go buy bins. Playing cards was more fun than Home Depot today.

Oh!  And last night I pulled "The Snooty Sisters" off the wall and stitched their beads on:

(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? 

Finish Report - "The Nerdles"

Yay - A finish I can share! This one is an old UFO, too, so that's a bonus.  :D

This is one of my top two favorites in the McKenna Ryan "Sea Breeze" set. Aren't these two engaging?

I'm super happy with how the dimensionality played out for this one. In my hurry to get it finished up, I started right in on the trapunto work simultaneously with the initial applique stitching, using a layer of poly batt as I always do for the feature pieces on these minis. Well, there's so much stitching work on the shell pieces that it flattened the shells out much more than the other body parts. So I added another layer of batting (but this time a tamer scrap of cotton) to re-trapunto the shells as wholes, and it worked perfectly. Maybe you can see the terrific shaping from this angle and with some contrast play:

While I use the poly batting for the trapunto work, I layer the prepped top on the cotton/poly batting I prefer for regular quilting work. 

And look!  Back in 2008 (or something like that) when I bought this kit, I did not choose to get the beading packets for it. I didn't think I'd want them. Well, I found somebody selling theirs off on my old guild's sale page. So I was happy to start adding that element with this mini. I plan on catching up the prior 6 minis by the time I pull out "The Doodles" for next month's UFO finish.

This is one of my Q4 Finish Along pieces (My goal post link)

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Linking up at:

Fabric Tuesday

Free Motion Mavericks

Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!

Link-a-Finish Friday

TGIFF, which is at A Quarter Inch from the Edge this week

 (main site here)

UFO finish Report - Tweedle Dee

I have two finishes from 3rd quarter that I haven't given posts to yet. This one is a UFO that was finished in July. "Tweedle Dee" is the dolphin on the right end:

It's from the McKenna Ryan Sea Breeze set of minis, and is about 16" square right now. When I have finished the last three of the nine, I'll get lessons on mounting them onto art frames, so they'll be more like 13" square at that point. For now, they're getting flat-finish edges instead of traditional binding, so there won't be that bulk on the back of the frames. 

When we lived in Florida, we had fun Caribbean blues in our home. The family room was a soft, refreshing sky blue, the Florida room had more turquoise, and the kitchen had that distinctive  - - well - - Caribbean - - kind of tealy-turquoise-blue. They all played so nicely together with the light sand-colored tile flooring and the blonde kitchen cabinets. 

Our Colorado house is very woodsy, and came with woodsy colors on the walls - a pale slightly-forest green on the main and bedroom levels, and a sandy color on the walk-out "basement" level. None of our coastal/beach decor works in the woods atmosphere on the upper levels, but some of it works quite nicely downstairs. That's the home of the exercise nook, my sewing area, the pool table, a long wall with half-height cubbies housing our vast DVD collection, and Scott's Man Cave (really the opposite corner from me). 

These quilts are looking really great along that wall above the DVD shelving! It's been empty all this time - a seventeen-foot unbroken stretch of sandy paint from the door to my stash storage room to the cue stick rack. I'm so happy to see them all getting finished and the magic they're working for the room.  :)

Oh! I see I'd actually mentioned him before, but I'm not fond of his close-up picture. Mounting him on the art frame will eliminate the waves in the outer sections, so those will be gone. I'm not sure about the wrinkles in his tail area, though.

He has a trapunto layer, but that wasn't enough to fill him out completely against the stiffness of the fusible. I use a lightweight product, but these minis were made before I started "gutting" the pieces of fusible stuff before ironing it to my constructino fabrics. It really makes a huge difference in the quilt's stiffness factor.

But I do love the silver metallic thread I used on his bubbles! It adds the perfect glint that you can only see in real life.

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

Finish Report - a UFO and some community service

I'm happy that I was able to get another UFO finished this month - "The Clampetts" from the Sea Breeze collection of minis:

This one worked up so nice! And here it was one of the ones I didn't really like. I didn't catch a shot that shows the trapunto work's dimension very well. The clams came out perfectly with it, and the seahorse, clown fish, and star fish all got a little trapunto as well. These minis will look so great on the art bars when I get them stretched. Three more to finish quilting, is all!

Note to myself: On these I had not gutted out the fusible before applying it to the fabrics and the quilt top, so even the large background areas have stiffness. See how the 40-wt thread just rides on top of it (that green across the bottom)? For future pieces, only use the Supreme or YLI invisible thread or 50-wt or thinner Aurifil or rayons/silks.

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

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My other share for this post:  

The day before yesterday I finished this community service flimsy:

I had intended to donate it to the Cinderella House that shelters women and girls that were rescued from human trafficking. But then Pat walked through and said, "Oh! I really like that one!" So did my hubby. Now I'm wondering: if it speaks that much to men, is it completely right for that charity - It must be the pin-stripe shirting in it even though it's pink (combined with the very geometric layout)?  When it's quilted, I think I'll just take it to the firehouse, instead, and see if they can use it for traumatic response comfort for somebody. But first I'm going to have some FMQ fun with it.

I had the HARDEST time getting a shot of the flimsy on its own. Navarre immediately claimed it as his when I draped it over the sofa. 

Even checking out the back:

You can probably guess that I got a ton of shots of him on it before deciding to go do a task or two and come back. But then he was just napping on it, funny boy!

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Linking up at:

Fabric Tuesday

Free Motion Mavericks

Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!

Link-a-Finish Friday

TGIFF, which is at Quokka Quilts this week

 (main site here)

Q3 Finish Along

August Wrap-Up and September Goal Post

August Accomplishments:

Priority Finish:

"Semper Fi - Combass" 

This is a 70" x 70" original design that I made for my now son-in-law to mark his successful completion of the Marine Corps Basic Training. It is the longest and hardest military basic training in the world, and after watching the 13-week curriculum chart as they went through the program, I'm just sayin, Marines have every right to brag about their accomplishment! Still, as a whole, they are super cool. Most come out also learning to be gentlemanly, and they love their moms (and mother-in-laws)! This photo was taken before the binding was completely stitched down, but it's my favorite. Hoping to have a photo op with the Marine himself sometime in the next few months!

Secret Finishes: One complete and one flimsy.

UFO Finishes:

"Tweedle Dum" (16" x 16") from the Sea Breeze set of McKenna Ryan minis. It's going to look neat to have all 9 finished in a few months, lining the long basement wall. This is the 5th one to get hung. I had some serious thread issues with this one. My machine DESPISES the 
monofilament threads and pitched a fit that broke some of the bobbin-winding mechanism. You can still make it work, but I'll have to take it in to the shop to fix it back to normal. I was disgusted enough that I didn't tear out the 4 lines with tension issues. But now it's happily hanging on the wall next to "Tweedle Dee"!

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

Community Sewing:

I finished framing all the blocks for the quilt I'm making to donate to the Cinderella House (a place of refuge for rescued women/girls that were caught in the human trafficking horror).

NETY pull-out:
(This is how I begin to incorporate Never Even Touched Yet items on my monster list of long-ago purchases into my work cycles)

Pick-A-B #3 - I actually pulled this out in July. Got all the fabrics washed, but I'm only about halfway finished ironing them. Hopefully I'll get them finished up this month and cut them out to put it away kitted. No pics of this - the fabrics are white, red, turquoise, pink based, with some florals in there. There will be white blocks that I'll do some red-work stitching on. Things like this fun teapot.

 

September Attention:

(The way I work is not for everyone. It is a cyclical process evolved from the need for variety while producing regular finishes. I'm on a mission to honor the money spent on kits and fabric in earlier years, as well as the interests and tastes of my younger self by finishing every squirreled-away project I found during a serious hunt-and-list session a couple years ago. I also want to allow myself to explore some new interests and trends, though. To those ends, I work best with goal oriented matrices that give me some self-organization on a variety of projects, with something marked as the priority work for a finish. Lists with items meant to be checked off as totally complete in a finite period of time stifle me. So don't look at my list of "goals" as something intended to have everything absolutely completed in a month. That would be amazingly stressful!)


















Complete Finish: "Be Attitudes" -  This is my chosen project for ALYF. It is my cousin's quilt top that I'm finishing as a wedding gift for her nephew.

Secret Finishes: The next 3 projects, and throw in some pot holders


Priority Quilting:  "Devon & Kyle United 2015" - I have only this much hand applique to do, then I can develop and mark the quilting plan and get this baby going at the FMQ station!!!

Piecing Station:  Get Little Miss overhauled so she can start working.

Community Service: Get the Cinderella House quilt to the finished Flimsy stage.

UFO work:  Finish "The Clampetts" from the Sea Breeze mini set."Be Attitudes" (above) is also a UFO! Bonus!  :D

Evening Handwork Station:  It would be nice to put a hanging sleeve on my quilt that Grandma made for my 16th birthday so I can hang that for a while. And please - PLEASE do the labels for "25th, Baby!," "Semper Fi - Combass," "Kelly's Joseph Smith 2," "A Laurel Burch Christmas," "Patriots in Petticoats," and guide label making for Heather's dragon quilt and Marissa's community service quilt. Maybe I can get these tasks moving finally now that I've finished all that hand work on the kids' wedding quilt.

BOMs:
Carry on the once-weekly attention to the projects on the Roll. Finish the center quilting for Kelly's; do 1.5 to 2 months of work on "Star Crazy"; proces block 4 the same way I did block 3 for "Wind in the Whiskers"; adapt the next row of "Americana" to incorporate Scott's desert BDUs and work environment.

NETY Pull-Out:
Go exploring the deep storage and pull out whatever catches my fancy.  :)  And finish pressing the last NETY's fabrics, eh? 

BOMs Away - Wind in the Whiskers

Oops - sorry 'bout that. I fixed the link-up so it's open 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.

Wow! This was a very productive BOM weekend for me. If you've ever worked on a McKenna Ryan quilt, you'll understand.

First I quilted up "Tweedle Dum" from my old Sea Breeze UFO set. So he's up on the wall now, waiting for the rest of those to be quilted and then I'll have the whole set mounted on canvas frames. That'll eliminate the waves on the sides of these. The dolphin has a trapunto layer. Even that wasn't enough, though, to fill him out completely against the stiffness of the fusible. I use a lightweight product, but these minis were put together before I started "gutting" the pieces of fusible stuff before ironing it to my construction fabrics. It really makes a huge difference in the quilt's stiffness factor. That wrinkle in the tail area pulls out, though, when the piece is stretched, so the canvas frame mount will take care of that, too.

Then I made the mini quilt for the clothes line that'll go on block 1 of Wind in the Whiskers. This thing is about 6.5" across. I find it super difficult to free motion quilt things this tiny - there's nothing to really hold on to while you're working!

And THEN I spent all day today getting the pieces for block 2 placed onto the right fabrics, fused, cut out (that took 2 movies!), and assembled. I even top-stitched the wings for the 3D butterfly. This block is 26" tall, I think it was. And the colors are a lot prettier in daylight.

Don't you love that Siamese? And the wee little bird? I don't love all those flowers. Too many finicky pieces to cut oh-so-carefully - cramped my hand up fiercely. I'll love them a few months from now. (At least until it's time to top-stitch/quilt all those pieces. . . ;D   

And somewhere after cutting all those pieces out and before assembling them, I did what I should have done right off the bat, and cut out the backgrounds for the rest of the blocks so I won't mess up when placing little pieces for early blocks that use those same fabrics and cut myself short for later blocks' backgrounds.

It sure felt good to get back in my groove after several months getting set by the wayside for the wedding and all! This finished a full month of BOM work as it's supposed to happen.

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Did you work on your BOMs?  Go ahead and share so we can keep each other motivated to keep them from stalling out.  :D