WIPs - Llamas and Unicorns

It's so nice to be back to regular blogging, instead of just BOMs Away days.  :)

My priority WIP work is almost finished. Here are Heather's Llamas during the roll-back to do the face and fur fills. That's all that is left for this cute quilt. It involves a thread change, so I finished everything else to the end first and dabbed out my register marks for carrying the lines across the llamas. I left it hanging loose overnight to evaporate those spots before rolling it back up on the front bar. I've learned that it can be challenging to keep tension perfectly happy when you're quilting a mix of fibers, and linen is a very stretchy fabric compared to cotton! The pro side of that is that it's fairly easy to manipulate to square things up. The con side is that tension is "interesting" when you're moving back and forth on sections of different fibers.

During my quiet early-morning work times, I've moved another 17 in 2017 item to the next phase. I made the backing for my "Leaded Glass" quilt. 

That's been procrastinated because I had this really fantastic fabric that I wanted to match the pattern with the seam. So I made myself get over it and just get it done finally. The size of two full fabric widths, minus the selvage on one side of the seam and the little bit to match up on the other side was perfect for the overage I'll need past the top's size.

Nailed that match-up!  

<~ That's a seam running down the right side, not a crease.  :)


I also pre-shrunk its batting, so everything is ready to go. I'm thinking this will be a really nice quilt to have on the frame during our snowy February days.  

~*~*~

Linking up: 

Brook's WIP Link-Up,
Lorna's Let's Bee Social, 

Julie's Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHARE

Sarah's Whoop, Whoop!

Meridithe's 17 in 2017

BOMs Away - Wrestling with "Wind in the Whiskers"

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.)

Talking about stalled out projects. . . My Wind in the Whiskers BOM has been abandoned since March, when I did hardly anything on it. And it was August 2015 before that, that it was last touched.

(These two blocks were individually pinned on my design wall.)

There's a reason for that. This is the WORST pattern I've ever worked with. Which is horrid, actually, because her patterns are quite expensive. I've done several other McKenna Ryan projects, and while they were intricate, they were completely decipherable.

This one is not. Working on it is a huge drain, and you just don't get anywhere - not because there's so much work, but because you CANNOT figure the durn thing out.

Barbara at Cat Patches knows!

So today, I've vowed that this thing is going to move forward one way or another. It's a beautiful quilt, and I want it hanging in my longarm studio by the end of next summer. So I'm bagging the pattern, other than tracing out the pieces, and doing it my own way.

First of all, I assembled the entire upper portion of the backrounds. Blocks 1 and 2 already had everything but the tree fused down, so they got trimmed to perfect size and joined. The pattern has you do a ton of stuff first, but not some stuff - and it's impossible to figure out what is what, and there's no exact full-size layout, so you can't figure the exact place to put some of the ones you're supposed to do before sewing the blocks together. . .

You get the drift. 

The other three backgrounds got cut slightly oversized so that the little bits of shrinkage during fusing won't matter. I'll trim the other edges to perfect size later. (That's why you can see them hanging over at the outer edges)

And that's all pinned back up on my design wall above my domestic machine. Had to shift everything around to accommodate its growth. Next I'll assemble all the non-tree components for blocks 3-5. Then I'll figure out which pieces I actually need for the tree and branches/leaf-regions that overhang all the blocks. It's not the least bit clear in the patterns which pieces those actually are. [Each block has its own pattern packet, and I think the gobbledy-gook of it all comes from these being written as individual mini quilts first, and then she intended the replacement pieces and full-quilt instructions to bridge the difference when you're making the full quilt, but that just didn't pan out anywhere near as well as it was supposed to. Those full-quilt adjustments are supposed to be explained in Block 4's packet (btw - why isn't this up front in Block 1's??), but it's like only the first 1/5 of the necessary adjustment discussion is there. And you can't get sufficient clarification on the errata page online.]

Again: BARBARA KNOWS!!!

Block 1's fusible pieces, for example.

I'm not doing any of the tracing and placing of lots of little pieces today, though, to do anything more than this. Doing what I did today put me in a foul mood, and I would rather do something Christmasy. I have hopes that the next session with this BOM will be a much better experience.

Instead, I put the downstairs tree up, and that really cheered my mood. Bonus points: It sits right by my sewing nook.  :D

And I rewarded my intense, stress-inducing foray into "Whiskers" by finishing my easy 4-patch "Daisy Days" blocks which I'd half-way sewn three weeks ago. This quilt will now wait until after the holidays to be assembled. Everything's been cut, ready to fly through the machine. :)

And it's much more fun than deciphering this crazy pattern. 

~*~*~

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.

Whoop! Listen With Your Eyes!! (some more tips, piecing NYB blocks)

Yes! Here's another 17 in 2017 item moved along.

All 40 NYB blocks finished

My "Listen With Your Eyes" kit has apparently been lost in limbo in my super-pretty chest drawer FOR SIX YEARS!!

What this will grow up to be:
"Listen With Your Eyes" - a Jacqueline DeJong design
This quilt SPARKLES amazingly in real life!

Good thing I put this project on my 2017 list, and that I didn't give in with so many still on it at the end of the year.  

I cleaned that drawer out completely and made sure I had all the bags, baskets, and boxes with parts of this stunning quilt.

It's a really difficult one to assemble, which is a lot of why it's been idle for so long. It took hours and hours just to sort things and reacquaint myself with what was going on and how to proceed. 

I lined everything up under my longarm frame where I'll see it every day and be prompted to work regularly on this top in the next months (and where cats can't interfere with it, as they're locked out of that room). 

Everything's in order of stages. Each stage is super intense! At least I had finished sorting all the colors the last time I'd worked on it, so "all" I have to do now is construct the components and assemble the blocks.

Some of my favorite pics from the 2011 work:

After getting everything sorted and studying the patter again, I settled in for the first stage in the line-up. The result was all those pretty New York Beauty blocks at the top of this post. There are 40 of them! I am super excited this morning to have this quilt moved to this point, and I suddenly feel like I've crested the peak of difficulty with this project. 

Tips about constructing these blocks:

Sailor's needle to take papers away from acute angles

CUT EXTRA AND TRIM AFTER SEWING - you want about 1/8" on each side at the inner angle  (start at the pattern edge at the seam and angle out at the point)

*and* on the outer curve, give it an extra 1/2" on the outside edge.

 This will provide stability when attaching it as well as give room for shrinkage if you mis-stretch the piece during construction. I just cut away the sewn seam allowance from one of the pattern pieces and taped it to the block so I could trim the outer edge. Very helpful with that super narrow curved seaming.

Thank goodness I had written those notes to myself on the baggies that held the arcs. I must have gotten those tips from Jacqueline DeJong at her workshop.

Jacqueline is a wonderful person, and she comes to the U.S. regularly. Her BeColourful quilts are AMAZING! If you want to make one, don't shy away from it. If you have your heart set on a 5- or 6-star pattern, though, I would recommend planning learning projects ahead of it. (This quilt that I'm doing is a 5-star construction.) 

The perfect lineup for me turned out to be: 

First, an easy Judy Niemeyer project, like Stepping Stones that will teach you basic paper piecing techniques. Next, do a project with curved piecing - try another Judy Niemeyer on a more complex level, such as Glacier Star (looks hard, but is extremely accessible as this pattern teaches you all kinds of advancing paper piecing techniques). 

Now try your DeJong mega-quilt. And if you possibly can, I also recommend going to a workshop with Jacqueline or one of her approved instructors. I'm not at all sorry I got into this quilt project. It's every bit as rewarding as it is challenging. And she has so many spectacular patterns now. I already know I want to reward myself for finishing this top by getting a kit for Spring Fever. . .   

~*~*~

Linking up: 

Sarah's Whoop, Whoop Linkup

Meridithe's 17 in 2017