~ Flimsy Alert! ~ Wind & Waves (the lighthouse quilt)

 Woohoo  :)  Another flimsy, already!  One more for the UFO score.  :)

48 x 53 inches, a Douglas Laird design for the collection "A World of Possibilities"

2021 UFO Score:

3 UFO quilts completely finished

1 curtain finished and installed

8 quilt projects shot down to flimsy status

This was a kit I'd bought prior to moving here in Jun 2012. In 2017, I washed fabrics and cut everything out, as a breather between main projects. This week, I pulled it out as a palette cleanser, so to speak, before I shift from that big Heritage quilt top to the next stretch of longarm work. I have one pantograph quilt that should be easy, then two full-custom tops that will take a lot of attention and energy.

I really like it. It did its cleansing job to give my brain a break - apparently a little too well, at that!  I made mistake after mistake after mistake. So what should have taken an afternoon to throw together took 2 days and a lot of Jack time, as well as a good bit of re-cutting. Good thing I had enough fabric left over for the three that I had to recut!

I could call it COVID brain, but I really think I was just off my game between intense projects.  :)

I made the binding -

But I didn't make the backing yet. Once this was all together, I realized it would be PERFECT to use a nice soft 21-wale corduroy for the backing. So I've got some of that in navy on order, and I've released the original fabric intended for the backing into my stash. (It's the same as the binding fabric, so it'll be fantastic for anything needing a navy blender.)  I was super good and refrained from buying anything else, even the latest Edyta Sitar bundle . . . even to get free shipping. . .  I have a ton of UFOs to shop amongst when I need something "new" to look at! 

Linking up at 

 Tish's UFO Busting Party

~ Flimsy Alert! ~ Collection For a Cause: Heritage

 Here is a UFO from 2008, now in full Flimsy status!

91 x 91 inches

This is the first Collection for a Cause - Heritage. The historian in me was charmed by the idea of making a replica of a quilt that was made from 1830-1846. This was a period when many of my ancestors were pioneers and it was possible that they could have seen or used some of this fabric when it was originally made. 

Making the pinwheels is as far as I got in 2008. I wanted to use the same placement in my quilt as the original's, so they were carefully paired, marked, and binned up with the setting, sashing, backing, and binding fabrics. Just making all those pinwheels was a lot of work, so that's one reason I tired of the project. Another reason is that it is not my colorway at all. I wasn't highly motivated to pull it back out.

When I made my 2021 UFO lists for the APQ challenge on Facebook (I did one for quilting, one for piecing), I chose a spectrum of projects from favorites to oldies. This was one of my oldest UFOs.

I also made the backing. As I bought this kit long before I had my longarm, I was surprised that I had enough yardage for a longarm backing. It didn't leave me enough to matchy-match the print at the seams, so for once I had to get over myself and ignore that. And, you can see I made the binding as well. Even though it will be quite a while before this gets quilted, I really, REALLY like having the binding ready to go once I've done that. 

I keep all my pre-prepped bindings tidily organized in this drawer, so I always know right where to find them, even if a couple years have gone by. Doing things this way makes sure I don't accidentally release a quilt's binding fabric into my stash when I put away the scraps from the project at Flimsy Stage. 

And now I'm pre-shrinking the batting for the next UFO that's being loaded on the longarm today.  :)

Linking up at 

 Tish's UFO Busting Party

 Finished Or Not Friday

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

~ Flimsy Alert ~ "Kashmir"

Hmmm... Rummaging around in the background areas of Blogger to find spam comments to delete en masse, I found this post that was started on Dec 19 and not actually finished!

I finished my Kashmir quilt top that day:

"Kashmir," a Jinny Beyer design - 82 x 82 inches

It was a Jinny Beyer kit that I cut out and kitted up in mid-August 2012. Poor thing sat in my UFO storage room all this time, and look how gorgeous it is!

I hope to be able to slip it into the already-scheduled quilting line-up later this year. Just in case, I'm going to prep the backing and binding this week. 

The nice thing about all the fussy cutting involved with this pattern is that I have enough good bits left over to do more fussy cutting for smaller blocks for another project. I can even get enough border for a wall quilt together. I'm really digging the idea of these combined with pretty greens for a Christmas hanging. I'm looking forward to pulling the box back out on December 1st later this year to do some free-play with it all.  :)

~ Flimsy Alert! ~ Garden of Dreams

   I can't believe how many UFO quilt tops have reached flimsy stage this month!

This is my king-sized "Garden of Dreams," a huge 119 x 110 inches.

It's a Georgie Gerl design for Kona Bay Fabrics that I tweaked to upsize it. I didn't want to just add 26 inches of border, so I inserted space between the columns, broadened the final border, and added another border on the sides.

Fun story - when the plumber was working on replacing the water heater a couple of weekends ago, this quilt's center was in 3 large pieces, draped over the sofa on that floor. He asked me "Is that to be a quilt? Are you a quilt person? Because that's beautiful." It really is pretty fabric, with gold highlights here and there in the prints.

I first worked on this quilt top in April 2014. I don't know why it got boxed up. . . wait, I bet it was to turn the dining room into an actual dining room for Easter Sunday. Ha! But then, for whatever reason, it didn't get pulled back out? And it's one I've wanted for our bed.

But here it is a complete flimsy! It is no. 1 on my APQ-sponsored UFO challenge list for piecing, but I want this on my bed this year. As soon as I get my post-Covid stamina built back up to several hours a day on my longarm (and catch up my no. 7 and no. 2), I'll slip this one in for quilting!

Linking up at Tish's UFO Busting party and Sarah's Whoop! Whoop!

~ Flimsy Alert! ~ Winter Woodland

 I'm on a mission this year! Serious UFO mitigation going on.

I finished my #7 for the APQ January draw last week, so this week I grabbed an off-list project to hit. 

This one is Winter Woodland, a Deb Mosa design. It is 70 x 80 inches

I bought this kit some time before January 2012, but didn't touch it until January 2018, when I used it as a break from whatever my priority work was at that time. Washed the fabrics and cut everything out, then carefully boxed it for "whenever."

This week it got its Whenever, and is now all grown up into a complete top and has moved to my longarm closet, where it will wait for its next Whenever with a lot of good friends.

It was an easy one to construct - just two blocks: a simple framing of panels, and a log cabin with a large fussy-cut center. Throw on some borders, and: Bam!

 

I really love having my closetful of flimsies. Some are on my short list for attention, others are not. It's awesome to let someone go through it to pick out a quilt I can finish making just for them. I know it will suit their taste and be something they love instead of something that is just "meh" for them. I actually have someone in mind that this might be great for, so it may just end up on the frame before many months have gone by. . . depends on my continuing Covid recovery and how long it takes me to build up to my normal amount of daily time at my longarm. I chip away there, but two 40-minutes sessions a day makes for slow custom quilting work, you know? The end is finally in sight on the horizon for the quilt that's been loaded since the end of September. A couple more weeks ought to do it.

Linking up at Tish's UFO Busting party and Sarah's Whoop! Whoop!

~ Flimsy Alert!! ~ Let's Build a Snowman!

 Woohoo!!

Yesterday I finished my January #7-piecing UFO, which has been boxed and stuffed at the back of the shelves since Dec 31, 2013.

49" x 59" - pattern by Possibilities.

(These super fun snowmen will get their eyes and mouths after the quilting is finished, with hotfix "coal" rhinestones.)

I purchased this kit some time before we moved across country mid-2012. I pulled it out of storage in Dec 2013, and was enormously disappointed.

Unlike all the other times I had bought kits from small shops online, this one was not a good situation. The fabrics were not at all those shown in the kit photograph, and they didn't go well together in the least. Some were completely missing. Others had nowhere near enough.

(Let me re-iterate that I have purchased - and still do so - many kits from small shops online, and the vast majority are absolutely fine. The few problems that have popped up are quickly fixed if you communicate with them - assuming you haven't left it in storage so long that they no longer have the kit's materials.)

My finished top is very like the kit photo. I ended up using only one of the panel backgrounds the shop sent in the kit, and perhaps 1/4 of the applique fabrics. The rest came from my stash and scrap bins. I managed to fuse all the rows by month's end, and then put it all in a box in disgust at the experience.

So it went into back-shelf storage that looks something like this, only with closed boxes. It even fell back behind, and it took me 3 hours to find it when I purposefully went looking for it on January 1st.  haha!

I didn't touch it until now. Since January 1, this has been my priority project several hours a day Monday - Friday.

All that blanket stitching took FOREVER, but turned out really nice. I joined the rows, went to the shop in the city to replace the terrible border fabrics they'd put in the kit, and got the narrow borders put on so that I could finish the blanket stitching of the parts that overlap the borders. We didn't see Bernie when we were at the shop. ;D

Aren't the memes flying around so hilarious?!

Yesterday I attached the final border and prepped the binding. LOVE IT!! now it all goes into my longarming closet, and may or may not make it onto the frame before next January.

I'm picking up another long-term UFO for attention at my domestic machine during the work-week, and continue to build the amount of time that I can work at my longarm each day. I'm up to 1:10 before my body is too fatigued. I continue to be amazed at how long Covid can substantially affect you. It's been 3 months and two weeks.

So, while I'm not sure I'll finish my pre-#7-quilting UFO before month's end, I continue to chip away at it each day after lunch. One bit at a time, I'll get to where I can pull Sew Spooky off and give it some binding. I had loaded it up the day before we went to Scott's mom's funeral (and got Covid), and I just couldn't bear to take it off once again. It's had so many false starts at getting its quilting done up.

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.

Finish Report! :) "Bohemia" is off my 18 in 2018 List

I do really love this folksy quilt, which was also on my Q1 list!  [Post two of two finishes to share today!]
   

It is made from the "Bohemia" collection of fabric by Julie Paschkis. I got the kit and whipped up the top in January 2014. Then it waited patiently-patiently in my Flimsy Closet while I finished saving up for the longarm. Other flimsies meant as special gifts and commissions monopolized my quilting time at the domestic during these years.

I had intended to hang this on the shorter rod in the family room, but the colors are just so gorgeous by the piano. And the camera has an incredibly difficult time showing these fabrics properly.

This quilt was done with a single layer of Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 cotton/poly, and I challenged myself to work in free-hand organic motifs with minimal SID on this quilt, to go with the whole feel of the fabric. It finished up at 48.75 x 68.75 inches after binding.

First I did the tiny bit of SID around the stop border, the panel edges, and the biggest triangular shapes (not the individual triangles). Then I put in the fill work for the four corner pieces (a simple flowery meander) and the smaller black-print triangles of the main peaks (even simpler loops). With that same black SoFine thread and SuperBob bobbins, I put in long leafy fingers in the black portions of the pinwheel blocks.

This was a perfect quilt to practice free-hand work on. As you can see, the prints hide most of the work, so it seriously doesn't matter how uneven your loops get or if you have wobbles in your echoing!

Next I changed over to black Glide thread with a MagnaGlide bobin and did the borders. I just followed around the elements in pretty open detailing, throwing in some leaves and curls in the upper open area.

The animal mini panels were super fun. I just outlined the elements and did some of the details in larger animals with that same thread.

Next I used a gold and a green Glide to put in poppies on the small colored triangles and some sculpting in the gold portions of the pinwheels. Other than the edge of the stop border and the big triangle peaks, those pinwheel teal-to-gold edges have the only straight lines on this quilt, followed by what I called wind-stream echoing. They were essential in defining the pinwheels - those blocks really melted into themselves before quilting and didn't look much like pinwheels. 

Didn't have a teal Glide, so I pulled out an Aurifil 50wt spool for those poppies and the remaining pinwheel sections (which got elongated flower petals).

Last of all, I put in some cream Glide with a cream MagnaGlide bobbin to draw folksy flowers-and-leaves in the cream borders around the animal panels.

The back is a green fabric from the collection, but I'd originally purchased enough for a domestic-quilting back, not for a longarm frame. So I augmented it with the black print from the collection that I'd also bought in a good bit of yardage. Two of my daughters love that print, so I'll be dividing the rest and sewing it to some cool minky backings (no batting) for them to have throws made from it.

Add a hanging sleeve. . .

. . .and lay it out to finish block-drying, and soon it's good to go for display. My family loves it as much as I do.

"Bohemia" is on my Q1 Finish-Along list, and is the first full finish pulled off my 18 in 2018 list.

~*~*~ Linking up at

UFO Busting Linkup at Tish's 18 in 2018 February Progress link at Lynette's 
TGIFF   Thank Goodness It's Finished Fridays is at Kate's this week
Whoop! Whoop! at Sarah's 
2018 Finish-A-Long Q1 Reports at Sandra's