Finish Report! ~ Sew Spooky

Woohoo!!!  You guys!  My "Sew Spooky" is FINALLY a finished quilt hanging on the wall!  It was my February OMG, and is my first full finish of the year, my first UFO completely shot down.  (Flimsy finishes are like "sightings" in my mind, and I've had a great run of 4 or 5 so far this year, but full finishes are the best score, of course!)

This is 55.5 x 66.5 inches after quilting and a wash. It was a 58 x 70 inch flimsy, and has dense quilting throughout. I always prewash fabrics and presoak batting, so if you don't do that, expect a lot more shrinkage. Batting is a single layer of Hobbs 80/20 Heirloom. It is soooo soft after the washing, yet the quilting still has nice dimension and looks great hanging. Dozens of threads were used on this, including several colors each of Microquilter, SoFine, Glide 40 and 60 weights, Aurifil 50 weight, Bottom Line, and Sulky Holoshimmer. I used pre-wound SuperBobs in silver, black, and orange, whichever was closest to the color being done on top. Designed by Arlene Stamper and Melissa Harris.

Started as a BOM in October 2014, and sewn up relatively quickly, this was partially quilted on my domestic in 2016, but then set aside when I decided to get a longarm. I wanted to do a lot of fancy quilting on it, so it was shelved to await a time when I felt comfortable with the new set-up. And then it waited and waited.

In 2019 I squared up the backing's overflows and started working it on the longarm. I'm not sure why it got pulled off after only doing the top bat blocks. I do remember that I wasn't particularly happy with how my quilting design was turning out, and it was a time-consuming process that I was not about to pick out. It was something to do with wishing I'd used a slightly larger scale with the "wallpapering."

It got re-loaded in early September, but family deaths followed by getting a bad Covid case derailed all my quilting until mid-January. I did not have the heart to pull this off the frame yet again, so I called it my Pre#7 in terms of the APQ UFO Challenge that I settled into for 2021.

When I started back at my longarm on Jan 11, I could only do 15 minutes per day. This week I have been able to do three 90 minute sessions per day! So I'm slowly rebuilding stamina.

The first thing I tackled on this quilt was finishing up those bats. That took F O R E V E R, given my capabilities at the time. And once I finished, I was magically much, MUCH happier with the effect of the scale. I actually love them now!

Not knowing how-the-heck to quilt anything else, I had to jump mental hurdles for every element as I moved along. The candy corns were simple, as I wanted them to have good dimension, so they just kept the ditchwork and single line across the middle of the sections. For their background, I went with a curly-cue feather approach that was inspired by the print on their background fabric.

Next I tackled that bright orange sashing. I thought with the candy corn being a thing, this provided a good place for me to practice ribbon candy, which I'd never done before. I wanted to learn the double style, and my conclusion was that single-style is far more pretty in a 1-inch sashing. The double is pretty in wider sashing. In the end, though, the flatness of the double on this scale works better for this densely quilted quilt than the single would have.

See how the single style leaves more dimension play, and is cleaner and prettier in the small space? -

After the sashing, I turned to the blocks and did the work on the buildings. The witch house in the center was the most fun, as it kinda has a witch's dress feel to it. So I accented the buckle idea on the upper floor and gave the main floors a Bo-Peep style skirt ruffles effect.

I always kept in mind that I wanted my buildings to have more dimension than the background quilting, so everything was quilted more open on them. When I hit the background quilting, I used McTavishing as my main fill, but incorporated feathers, flowers, tree leaves, lamp glowings, and "magic spinners" here and there in the blocks.

Paths got dimensional lines, but the grass eluded me forever about how to handle. I finally tried out a half-inch on-point grid for CC's, and those worked out perfectly for lawn areas.

The black web border had been done on my domestic years ago, with a simple webbing-style FMQ pattern.

Which left only those star corners. Some ditch work around the circles and stars, outline the owls, and then I tried out that Sulky Holoshimmer thread on my longarm for some shooting star lines and "magic" squiggles. Wasn't sure how that was going to behave!

After a few minutes of fiddling with tension, though, it worked just fine. I used the lateral spool feeder on top of my machine, skipping the entire back half of the tensioning path and lowering the number of threading hole in the front half's bars. I did use a slick Glide bobbin with it instead of the matte SuperBobs. I only had like 1 break in the thread, so I was happy. I even went back and put silver highlighting on the belt of the central block, the cloud outlines on the witch block, and the detailing on the Ghoul School's doors, and then pulled out some glittery variegated thread to try for some more "magic" swirls in the Jack-O'-Lantern house's doorway and a window. Worked great. I'll be playing more with those specialty threads in future!

None of the metallics show up at all in the photos. In real life they glisten so prettily. Gold around the ghosts to help their glittery white fabric stand out a little more from the background fabric, as well as around the little moon and witch's broom straw, and the star on the crow's pumpkin. Silver holoshimmer thread and glittery variegated was used as described above in the quilting.

This quilt has fun embellishments here and there - novelty buttons mainly, with some embroidered eyes for crows, spiders, and cat.

It even has its own free-floating mini quilt that's hand quilted! With a "friend" underneath!

And even though I knew from the beginning this would primarily be a wall quilt, I gave it a fun Halloween print for its backing.

. . . Along with an appliqued bat for its label.  :)

For a quilt that used up so much mental energy to figure out how to approach it for the quilting, it sure did turn out magnificently.

Linking up with:

February OMG finish party

Tish's UFO Busting party

BOMs Away - dots and binding

 

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)

Not much BOM happened here this weekend. I spent most of my time up on the high ladder, cleaning all our upper windows and the entry chandelier. They were so grimy! Nice and sparkly now, though. 

I made my 8 temperature dots, but didn't stitch them down yet.

(I'm using the 2" Perfect Circles templates for these, and setting them onto a 3" finished-size block.)

And I got most of the binding stitched down for my Sew Spooky, so there's that for BOM work, as this was originally from this category of work. One more TV session will do it.

It will need to be cleaned and blocked, and then still gets embellishments and a label and hanging sleeve, but I'm hoping to have it fully finished by next week's post!

 ~*~*~*~

Now it's your turn to share any BOM type work you've done lately. 

:)

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

February~!

My One Monthly Goal is to finish all the quilting on my Sew Spooky. 

It was loaded onto my frame in late September, but didn't get touched while we visited Scott's mom, and then attended her funeral. Which we got Covid from.  :( 

Since I hadn't stepped foot in my longarm room from before we were exposed (which remains closed to keep kitties out), I left it shut up to keep it virus free in there. It took many weeks for me to have enough energy to even attempt to work at the longarm, so that door stayed "sealed" until January 4th. 

Since then, I've managed to push my physical capability from 30 minutes in a day to two 40 minute sessions in a day. I hope to get up to 1 hour in the morning and 45 minutes in the afternoon by the end of this week. 

Being a quilt that I wanted to practice a lot of tiny fill work on, its time on the frame has really S T R E T C H E D out over the weeks!

This is the month, though! This baby's going to get finished finally.  

And because that's only a fraction of the time I have available, here is "The Rest of the Story" for February --

Mon-Fri Priority Time: 

Longarm: Sew Spooky > when that finishes, load up UFOq #2 King Size Dahlia

Domestic: FMQ on Moose Lake for Scott > then move to UFOp #2 Down the Rabbit Hole, which needs the rest of the applique on the rabbit borders and the outer diamond piecework border.  [Plus slip in 10 min per day on the secret birds.] [Leader-Ender = Feathered Goose units 4]

Evening hand stitching: 

Finish the first bathroom curtain, and how far will I get on And to All a Good Night? It's possible that might be finished this month; if so, pull out the next Affairs of the Heart block.

Saturday Free-Play: 

Whatever UFO catches my eye (usually ends up being that weekend's BOM)

Weekend BOM times: 

[Temperature dots] and rotate Harmony, Forever My Valentine, and Surfer's Point

That is not as much tasking as it looks to be. With an empty nest house, I have several hours every day that I can devote to quilting things. I spend more time at my domestic machine these days since I have limited physical capability at the longarm. I do completely different work on the weekends from what I do Mon-Fri. I am *not* one of those people who can work on only one project all the time every day for weeks on end until it is finished. That is the fastest way to kill my mojo altogether, and then nothing happens.

Also note that other than my OMG, my list acts not as a whipping post demanding multiple finishes, but more like a bowling lane's bumper rails that keep me focused while I work along. I'm happy with whatever point each of those projects gets to by month's end. This part of my planning is about the journey, not the finishes (although the finishes crop up regularly). 

*If you were looking for the BOMs Away link-up, it is on the last post: BOMs Away Monday 

Linking this post up to OMG February

BOMs Away - The Variety Show

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 there! I worked on three different BOMs this week:

Well, this one is a Technique of the Month rather than a Block, but Heather's Dahlia is a finished top - 

And I did the bits of embroidery on my Sew Spooky quilt, then got it loaded and am playing around with detailed custom work (this is my #8 UFO for the APQ challenge) - 

And I've put in a good start on my From the Heart block 5 - 

So, BOMs have been representing at all 3 of my work stations this week! Sewing machine, longarm, and TV sofa.

~*~*~

How are things on your end? Did you do any BOM work this week?

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

OMG for October, WIP

So much of my year got hijacked away from quilting, that it feels really great to get back in the swing of things with quilting!!  I'm linking to Elm Street Quilts for OMG.



For October, I will get over myself with my mental blocks on this very fun quilt and put it on my frame to be my One Monthly Goal project. I want the quilting completely finished by month's end! Bonus if I get the binding and hanging sleeve finished in time for it be on the wall for Halloween.

(This is the Sew Spooky pattern by The Quilt Company)

There remains perhaps 60% of the detail quilting, which will happen in many different thread colors.  

Also, this is on my 18 in 2018 list, which needs some serious attention.

It'll be the perfect quilt for the month - probably the only quilt for the month since half my days are still dedicated to remodeling work - and next year it will be available for the wall all month long!

~*~*~

But FIRST, I have a customer quilt to do, which is the current WIP. 

Yesterday I fired the longarm back up after a good cleanup to rid all the dust and check the oil. It's loaded with a customer's super fun fabric and her really luscious red velveteen backing. 

As soon as the store will be open, I'll swing by to pick up the perfect thread for it, and then go to town with the quilting. Maddy wants random vertical lines (I've loaded it sideways for quilting ease), so this makes the perfect project to break back into my normal stride on the longarm - simple to execute and gratifyingly fast to work through and pull off the frame.

~*~*~ A Sew Spooky Halloween ~*~*~

I'm slowly getting back into my normal groove as this Lupus flare starts to resolve. One bummer is that I'd wanted to have this choice from my "17 for 2017" list finished for this year's season, but it was one of the casualties of the Black Belt gauntlet. So I'm settling with getting it moved forward a stage. But look! We got a bit of Halloween snow in the night.  :)

I did get a good eight hours of work done on it this week, though. It had been partially quilted at my domestic machine last year, but will go onto my longarm for the rest of the work. Before that can happen, I had to get all the hundreds of tails tied and tucked, trim back the excess batting on opposite sides, and square up the ends to be able to load it onto the frame. I'll be loading it sideways to minimize the number of times I need to roll it.

I also attached zippers on my frame's canvases, so I'll be able to take my own work off the frame to put on a customer's or a time-sensitive gift. I just loaded a back for the next-up quilt on those, and so far so good. I anticipate *loving* that system. It was actually enjoyable pinning the ends to the zipper sides while sitting in front of a good Halloween movie. :)

One day, those closet doors and trim will be painted white.
And the batting's not staying that way - I just got the top aligned
and still need to tuck it through the bars to hang down the front.

(The zippers separate completely, and you pin the top and bottom of the backing to the removable zip tape, exactly as you would have pinned it along the edge of the canvas.) I only had to undo what I'd done once on the first side and flip the backing around to repin it - my first pinning had the fabric oriented so it would lay wrong side out - not what we want!)

This being the 7th quilt on my longarm, I'm not completely decided on my most favorite way of controlling a quilt. It looks like it's going to be floating in the style of "Lori's way," with the quilt-top bar removed (but I need a brake adjuster to do that), and a slider measuring tape across the frame near the remaining front bar to control the placement of all the vertical lines. 

I think I'll like that particular floating technique best of all, since I will be able to easily lift the top with each advancement to check that the batting is laying nicely without over-stretched areas or little crumples, I can remove any rogue threads from the back of the top that may have appeared out of nowhere before they're quilted in to show through light colors on the front, and I'll have maximum control over easing the top into the best alignment as I go along. 

Huh. I really need to make a post about my longarm beginnings, as I'm now stitching down the binding on the queen size quilt that I finished there, which was quilt number six.

BOMs Away - A Little Sew Spooky FMQ

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! I got my machine back from the shop last night after 2 weeks. I needed to get my feel for FMQ work back before I dive into working on Helen's quilt (more on that soon). Also, I need more of my basting pins freed up. So I pulled my old BOM, "Sew Spooky," off the storage shelf to do some more work on its quilting.

I got all the FMQ work done for the black thread. LOVED working on the bats. They're just so cute.  :)

I also did the few spots of machine embroidery here and there. 

There are so many spiders on this thing, by the time I was a fourth of the way around with the black stop border, I was jumping any time a thread, lint, or a falling hair touched me!

It's a fun quilt. Too bad I can't let it be on the priority list for a long time.

~*~*~*~

It's your turn - - - Let us know if you've done any BOM or QAL work recently!

An InLinkz Link-up

Flimsy Alert! ~*Happy Thanksgiving*~

Although we're also getting ready for Thanksgiving Day, I've been wrapping up quilt projects that have been out and about in my sewing area.

First, I got this Deb Strain "Saltbox Harvest" kit that I bought in something like 2008 whipped up. LOVE it, with its "Give Thanks" banner!! Won't get quilted until next year, but I'm going to pin it to another quilt so I can hang it up today. Loved putting in those prairie points. It's somewhere in the range of 40 x 50". These colors are surprisingly true:

And I also finished up my "Sew Spooky" BOM quilt! (Thanks so much again, Billie!) It's supposed to have one more border, and I'd already cut that out when I decided I really do prefer it like this, with a black binding (maybe with gray grafted in at the cornerstones) after it's quilted (again - something for next year's fall season!) This is something like 57 x 70" and good, true colors here:

I hope this week finds you well, and if you're in the U.S., enjoying a great Thanksgiving holiday time with your family or loved ones. I am ecstatic to have everybody unexpectedly back home this year living here, plus one fiance in the basement (although I've had to adjust my machine quilting time accordingly), to solidify this house that we moved into two years ago as the family home rather than just "the house Mom & Dad moved to" since it's all the way across the country. I'll have to update this with a family pic that'll get captured on Thanksgiving Day.  :)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Linking up at:

Fabric Tuesday

Shannon's KISMIF

Can I get a Whoop! Whoop!

Link-a-Finish Friday

TGIFF is at Persimmon Dreams this week
 (main site here)

BOMs Away Monday - Halloween Edition

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, everyone! I hope you had a good weekend. Mine was quite satisfactory, thanks to my quilting hobby! We've had some academic drama, and one of the teens had to spend many MANY hours over the weekend doing make-up assignments, so I couldn't go anywhere due to supervision needs. 

Not a prob! BillieBee so very graciously gifted me with the "Sew Spooky" pattern a couple of weeks ago, and I gave in and ordered a few Halloween fabrics.  Thanks so much again, Billie!

Combine that with the fact that my thesis was turned in to my defense committee on Thursday, and I spent the entire weekend playing with that BOM pattern! What a treat, really, this "chore" weekend turned out to be for me. 

I spent Friday, around Mom duties, washing/ironing the fabrics I'd ordered and pulling things from my stash to mix and match with those. I also traced out all the fusibles I would need for the applique pieces.

Took a break in the afternoon to help Heather finish cutting and stuffing peppers that she made for her work pot luck - and graciously left the messiest ones home for us to eat. DELICIOUS! And CUTE!

She made her Jade costume completely from scratch, fashioning the pattern and everything. Even made the gloves!  And Marissa sure had that Wednesday glare down pat.  :D

Once all the teens/young adults were off and away for their various Halloween parties, I threw on my old witch costume and cut out all the pieces while I tended the door for Trick-or-Treaters. Scott came home during that time and caught a moment with Navarre, who coudn't figure out if he was more fascinated with my hat's feathers, or the fabrics I was moving around, or the kids who showed up at the door.

This pattern comes from the same company as my "Heart & Home" and "Garden Friends" BOMs. I do love piecing each panel - they're just like putting puzzles together!

I worked ALL day Saturday and quite a good bit of Sunday on this quilt - and the progress was great. [Too bad she had sooo much homework to catch up on!!] Most all of the work on the center panels is finished (just bits of the sashing and borders are laid out with them here) - I only have to do the blanket stitching on about 2/3 of the black fused pieces, and then I can put the center together. There will be some embroidery to throw on here and there before I put the borders on, as well.

Speaking of which, none of the border bats or cornerstones are stitched yet, but aren't these owls just too cute?

I love my sparkly ghosts - hooray for super finds in the stash scrap bin! I stitched them with gold metallic thread - look super cool in life.

I wish my orange sashing fabric wasn't quite so bright, but there you are. It'll be cheery on the wall next year. But I'm definitely changing out the gray fabric that I'd cut for the candy corn background. I really loved the idea of that swirly text print being in there, but it's just overwhelmingly dark in the general context of the quilt's center. Gonna go stash diving one more time, and if I can't find something better, I should be able to squeeze enough out of the gray web print that some of the bats were put on.

And one last Halloween share - fiber artist/teacher Liz Kettle lives next door, and her son is every bit as much a crafter as we are. Only, he specializes in chain-mail artistry. Look at this beautiful shirt he made~! I caught him outside a few days ago breaking into it so he could use it in an hours-long weekend event. Just amazing, really! I wish I'd taken a close-up shot of how expertly the links are webbed. Now I just need to catch him in full gear. . .

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So, how was your week? Did you get to work on any of your BOMs?