January and February BOMs 1 - 2

I have to play a little catch-up with my blogging, so I'll just list the BOM blocks I stitched last month with the coordinating BOMs for this month.

First, we have the blocks for Flying Needles Quilt Guild. At our general meeting, if you turn in a block, you get a ticket and the winner of the draw gets to take all the blocks home! (Fun stuff!) I make my blocks in triplicate: One to turn in, one to keep for a complete theme quilt at the end of the year, and one to turn in to Ginger for the guild's Quilts of Valor efforts (since these are in Americana colors, why not!?)

Sharon is running the BOM function this year, and she had the greatest idea for a theme. 2011 is the 235th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, so she's chosen 12 star patterns that relate to the theme. In January, we sewed Rising Star blocks, which signified Thomas Paine's best-seller Common Sense. This appeared in January 1776, after the fighting had started. The pamphlet was widely distributed and loaned, and often read aloud in taverns. It contributed significantly to spreading the ideas of republicanism and liberalism, bolstering enthusiasm for separation from Britain, and encouraging recruitment for the Continental Army.

Incidentally, New Hampshire was a rising star, itself - as it adopted a state constitution in January 1776 – 6 months before the Declaration of Independence!


February's block is pretty self-explanatory: Washington's Star



BOM #2 - Linda's Swap Adventure

Linda organized this swap group through the blogger world, and I'm having a blast with it. The first block was made for my January partner, Mary in Canada. The other two blocks were sewn today for my February partner, Sylvia in Australia:











Speaking of which - Here are the blocks I've received from Mary and Sylvia!

A Finish Report (whee!)

So...

I am two for two so far this year!

In January, I finished this incredibly fun, bright and cheery quilt that my cousin's quilty friend had made at a class with her in 2009. She and Kelly had done the class to make themselves do something outside of their boxes. (Kelly was a Thimbleberry girl through and through!) Well, they DESPISED the quilt tops!

Kelly went ahead and got hers quilted at the high school, and put it out on an air mattress when we visited that summer. My daughter RAVED about it, and Kelly gave it to her on the spot. A few weeks later, she called me up, explained that her girlfriend despised her top, too, and would we like it? WOULD WE? lol!!! So, the top was mailed out to us.

Shortly after that, Kelly passed away at far too young an age. Heartbroken, I didn't do anything with the top until this year. The time seemed perfect for pulling out something connected to Kelly and finishing it up. (When I went back for her funeral, I gathered all the unfinished projects I could find and shipped them home so I could finish them for her children.)

Found a perfect backing fabric, paid Patty at Katydids Quilting to do a really cute edge-to-edge, and then hunkered down with some fun movies to stitch the binding. And, voila! One very cute, perky twin-sized quilt!

~*~*~

My second finish, from this month, is another quilt of Kelly's, and it's a perfect example of her favorite style and colors. I don't know when she pieced this one, but it should have been either 2008 or 2009. She'd had it quilted at the high school, which she was usually happy with. This time, though, there were a lot of problems that she didn't feel like dealing with, so she folded it and left it on a shelf. So, I patiently unknotted the bobbin nests and hand-worked those areas, then trimmed and bound the quilt for her son. It's going out to Washington state as soon as I verify the mailing address. :)

Figuring This Out. . .

So. . . I've been stitching along as I can around schoolwork and Mom stuff - Just haven't been posting because I'm new at this blogging thing. So much inspiration to be found in the Web world! Will post my year's progress in a bit.

For now, I scoured my memory for the years on my Lifetime Finishes list, and got my Truly Insane list of active UFO's composed, roughly in order of priority.

There are many reasons that list is so long, among them:

• 1o. Unhappy with the way the project' design was turning out or Decided I hate the colors and boxed it up until some unknown time.
• 9. Found some Poor Forgotten Orphans from years ago in an obscure closet!
• 8. Mother-Daughter projects that can only progress when they are here.
• 7. Uncertain how I want the quilting done.
• 6.Waiting for my quilt's turn at Patty's long-arm studio.
• 5. Broken heart from the death of someone very close.
• 4. Adopted projects for deceased cousin.
• 3. Unorganized work area with inadequate station needs
• 2. Lack of skill for the next step, giving in to INTIMIDATION. (no more! OO-Rah!)

and the number 1 reason:

• Quilt ADD. Yep, I freely admit it. I cannot stand to stick with one project at a time, nor (until now) have I had good discipline in saying "No" to accepting a new project that calls to me.

It just takes so stinkin' long to finish the big, heirloom-quality quilts I gravitate toward, that I get sick of looking at the same colors and techniques. So I work in a circular fashion - tending to stick with a given project to the next good stopping point and then putting it back in its bin/box and moving to another. The fun part of that, though, is that now there are a LOT of projects in the final stages, so I'm at a point where I'll have finish after finish of these treasures!