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? 

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? 

BOMs Away - New Seasons for All the Kids, Americana & Strolling the Block

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 there. It's a time of big changes for the family.

We moved Heather into her apartment up in Denver. . . 

. . . and she is matriculated into medical school now. Long journey to get this far, long journey more.

It's a fun campus. 

Heather and the Giant Peach

I loved this wall art - there was something so captivating about the different shoeprints, interspersed with roller blades, ice skates, bike treads, a soccer ball print, children's prints. It was all done by the class of 2006. I thought it was brilliant.

And even bigger news, she's now engaged to this young man! They're being super nice to us, though, and giving us two years to recover from this spring's wedding.

Other kids: 

Devon and Kyle bought their first car - exciting!

And we had fun with Marissa's senior portraits shoot. School starts back up for her this Wednesday. Can't believe the baby of the family is at this point!  

So - around all this, I did get some BOM work done this week. I sewed up row 2 of the Americana QAL:

I was stumped for the longest time trying to find a fabric to use for the background on this one. But then I caught sight of the tub in the back corner where I've kept a bunch of Scott's older uniforms, so I harvested one of the retired BDUs shirts. 

The value was too dark for the hearts fabrics, so I just edged those with a beige plaid fat quarter I had. I also appliqued them onto a single-piece background instead of piecing the background around the hearts since that stuff is like working with duck cloth canvas. I really love how it turned out!

I also pulled Kelly's quilt back out and finished the free-motion work on the Oct-Nov-Dec row that I was working on when we dropped everything to drive to Nebraska. Getting really close to the finish on this one!

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Hope you were able to find time for some BOM work.

BOMs Away - Kelly's "Strolling the Block"

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. Not much BOM work accomplished - I was finishing the orange peels in the sashing of the bottom row of Kelly's "Strolling the Block" quilt when we got word that Scott's mom had a stroke. So I dropped the quilting before I started on the blocks themselves, and we'll be driving out there as soon as his commander authorizes emergency leave. She's in the hospital in unknown condition, and his dad is fairly newly blind, so he needs a lot of help and support at the moment.

Hope things are better for you.

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Did you work on your BOMs?  

BOMs Away - Kelly's "Strolling the Block"

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.

It has been a very, very long time since I've worked on Kelly's BOM quilt! Finally, though, I had a first-Sunday without wedding prep or activities, so I pulled it back out and did the quilting on the July-August-September row and its frames. It's all free motion on my table-top machine.

Fun crops:  The fireworks in July. Last night, as Devon and I were watching a show, a neighbor set off some beautiful (and highly illegal) fireworks that were perfectly framed in our picture window. You'd almost think we ordered them up special for our own enjoyment! 

Too bad I didn't have dark sparkly thread for this part.

I had fun putting in atypical wave reflection lines in the August sky. It works in the whole block's context. :)

And September's science-nerd schoolboy under the swing tree - Kelly's son, Brady, ought to get a kick out of him. (I'll be sending this quilt to him.)

If you've "known" me for a while, you already know that my first-Sunday BOM time is spent working on my cousin's UFOs (most of which were BOMs, anyway). She was like a sister to me, and died very young at 46 from a heart condition. So these are nice days for me to reminisce about Kelly as I work on her projects.

And then I came upstairs and saw how nicely the delphiniums have broken out over the last two days!

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How about you? Did you get any work done on your BOMs? I really like seeing how you're coming along - it inspires me to keep plugging away on mine.  :D

BOMs Away - Kelly's "Strolling the Block"

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.

Boy, doesn't March just sneak in on you when you're a quilter with things to get done?  ;D


First Sunday means it's time to work on one of my cousin, Kelly's, quilts. I didn't work as long as I'd wanted on her "Strolling the Block" since I started the day out getting one of my retreat projects all prepped for the trip.

I did get both April and May quilted up, though. 

I don't do a lot of small-detail quilting on these blocks, generally just following the outlines of the various pieces. But I did go along all the cement lines around the stones on this pathway fabric. It just wanted to be done, plus that layer of applique was particularly stiff and it puffed out not-so-nicely.

I really like the raindrops I'd stitched on April's sky. 

And especially the tulips!  :)

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So, it's your turn to share any work you've done on your BOMs lately!

BOMs Away - Kelly's "Strolling the Block"

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.

Oh! I'm sorry I didn't get this posted last night, everybody. I've been really distracted the last few days - I found out I have cancer, and we're in the middle of diagnostics to find out to what extent and try to identify the specific type. It seems I have to be unique (or rebellious, take your pick!) even in this - not only did I get a non-Hodgkins lymphoma in the skin, but it's one they've never seen. The pathology lab in Washington, D.C. even thanked the regional lab from out here for sending such an interesting specimen and expressed gratitude for sharing future findings. . .   ::sigh::  Hopefully, it's in the family of lymphomas that responds super well to treatment! I have a bilateral bone marrow biopsy on Thursday, and then a full-body PET scan on Monday when whatever they put in me Thursday has had a chance to get cleared out  Make that: Tomorrow is my scan, now, because Tricare got blasted by 5 different doctors, 3 nurses, a hospital admin, and 3 different offices' desk jockeys for dragging their feet on authorizing my care. (Military people may be able to relate to the insanity of getting things authorized sometimes!)  
There's a gentleman at our Taekwondo dojang who's just finished treatment for throat cancer (successfully, as it shows so far!!), and he's my new personal mentor. I find that the Taekwondo community is every bit as sharing and supportive as quilters and church congregations can be, so I'm very fortunate in both the social and physical benefits of having started that activity almost a year ago! Thank goodness for the extra level of baseline health from which to kick cancer out!  

Back to BOMs Away  :)

Being First Sunday, yesterday I pulled out Kelly's "Strolling the Block."  

I got all the orange peel work put in for one row's sashing and quilted one of the blocks before I got a call from Katie to see if I could come pick up the Taekwondo trailer from a city event so she and the men that had been working could go to Superbowl parties. LOL!!!   I didn't mind, as they knew I wouldn't. I don't do football, and my clueless gaping outside of class when they talk of such things was a no-brainer.  ;D

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Did you enjoy Superbowl Sunday? And have you worked on any of your BOMs lately?

BOMs Away - Kelly's Strolling & Grand Illusion

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.

I got a little quilting in on Kelly's "Strolling the Block" for this week's BOM work. I just did the maroon stop border and 3 of the sashings. This is the first time I've done any orange peel work, and it shows. They'll get better - that's why I started in a weird place.  :)

Also, during the week I put in a little time on my Grand Illusion mystery. I got all the pinks attached for Clue 2, then was sick of those for the week, so I sewed all the Clue 3 green strips into pairings with the blacks and whites. Hopefully next week I'll get all the black triangles attached and the units finished for Clue 2.

And just for some eye candy. :D  Isabeau has been following me all around the past couple of days, even curling up in the second sink while I wash my face. She's just so adorable with her ultra-long winter coat!

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Have you started back into your normal routines yet now that we're a few days into the new year? Have you done any work on your BOMs?

BOMs Away - Kelly's "Strolling the Block," Grand Illusion Clue 2, New Belts!

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! For the First-Sunday work on Kelly's projects, I hit the quilting hard on her "Strolling the Block."

I got all the stabilizing stitch-in-the-ditch work finished. 

This quilt keeps having issues - I've written before about having to resew the borders on. Well, the blocks are not uniform in size, so there are areas where it's impossible to keep things square. But it's still going to be so much better finished than not!

I hadn't seen this incomplete seam until I quilted past it. Hand stitched that shut, no prob.

And I found this gash in the sashing near the February mailbox post. Didn't address that yet. I probably will just do some satin embroidery stitching over it first thing next month.

And once that's done, it's on to the more fun free-motion work since all the stabilizing is finished. :D   I'm wondering if I'll find that a thicker loft than this batting would have been better at handling the extra slack in the gray sashing pieces.

This past Friday we got Clue 2 for Bonnie Hunter's 2014 Mystery Quilt: Grand Illusion. I have all the pieces cut out, but only 10 diamond units and 1 block finished. That may be all that happens before Clue 3 arrives, as I have two Christmas quilt UFOs that I really REALLY want to finish quilting before Christmas.

Last thing: Everyone in the family passed the belt test yesterday! 3 greens, and 2 purples now - Getting fitter and more adept. Having a lot of fun together, too!

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We're all gearing up for Christmas, so it's hit and miss, I know. Have you done any BOM work lately?