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? 

WIP - Feathers!! Finally!!!

You guys!!!  

I can finally - FINALLY - do feathers that come out acceptably instead of looking like a kindergartner did them.  :D

The funny thing is, I can only do them if I put in the little curly-q on every other plume. Try it without, and they all go catty-wumpus.

I figure once I get all the blue of this quilt done, I'll be much more comfortable and proficient with them and ready to try another variation.  :)

I can't tell you how happy this breakthrough makes me after almost a year of disappointing attempts!  Give me some time, and they'll look even better. For now, I'm thrilled with them.

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Linking up at

Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday

Lee's WIP

Esther's WOW