The WEEK END!!!! YEA!!

Well I was off on Friday and I wanted to get some sewing done, but with the hundred and one other things that were on the agenda I didn't get a lot of sewing completed.  What I did get done was some work on my block of the month that has been kind of laying around waiting for me to complete the blocks.  Well it is almost the end of the year and the last of the blocks so I figured I better get busy.  The fact of the matter is, I have more than one BOM that I have started and completed 2 or 3 of the blocks and while I continued to go and pick up the patterns and I picked up sashing and borders and binding and even backing and they are all waiting for me to retire and get busy!  Now I have to say that I did complete one of my BOM that was from several years ago when I was traveling to Knoxville every month and doing a lot of quilting up there.  I did finish that quilt and my DIL has that one on her bed at home.  It was Thimbleberries and was a wonderful quilt.  I have to say that some of the blocks I really didn't like the fabric so I sort of substituted some of the fabric and some of the blocks just did not do anything for me so I sort of did my own thing a time or two.  There were also a couple of blocks that I didn't sew exactly like they said because I made mistakes but they were very interesting so I just went ahead and put the stuff I wanted in the quilt and I'm not alone in thinking it was a good quilt.  The problem is.........that is the only BOM I have ever completed.  I guess you could say I'm a starter but not necessarily a finisher.  Oh well, that's me!  But I am determined that this quilt will be finished!  So on to the blocks.

I've completed 6 of the blocks.  It seems I have misplaced one of my patterns so I will have to check with my bud, Peggy, to see if she still has her copy of that particular block.  Then I will pick up the November and December blocks and will be ready to go to finish the quilt.  I think I will go ahead and try to do some of the putting the blocks together since I do have the finishing pattern so I will have that done also.  The more I get done the more likely I am to be able to just pick it up one weekend and finish it.  I love it when I can go through and pick up several different items and sew them together and put the borders on and just finish several quickly.  Do you like to do that also?

How funny that these two pictures go together and almost look like one picture.  This is four of the blocks.  The peach with gray stripe is not part of the quilt blocks just in case you were wondering.  Each block is pinned to it's patter and the plastic bag the pattern and fabric was packaged in.

 

 

Okay here are the other two blocks I have completed. 

 

 

I am really very happy with the way the blocks are turning out.  Maybe this is something else that will inspire me to finish this BOM. 

 

I have been saving up things for several years and saying this is for when I retire.  Well now that I am almost to retirement I keep digging through my things and finding things that I actually forgot that I even had!  I found another BOM that came totally packaged and I really don't remember if I got it in Knoxville or if I got it from the Gypsy Quilter when she came to visit and teach at our guild.  She stayed here at my house and we talked quiting 24-7!  It was so much fun.  Poor Kenneth got to cook for her the entire time because we were so busy doing things that I just didn't even have time to cook! lol.  My friends that would come by the house and I benefited greatly from her staying here because she was a wealth of information!

 

At any rate I have either 3 or 4 or 5 more BOM that I can think of right now that have not been sarted or not been completed.  One of my quilt shop owner friends used to get all the stuff together for the entire BOM for me and just let me buy everything at one time and that was wonderful so that is one of the reasons I have so many.  I think it would be awesome for quilt shop owners to make up a few kits to have for sale as a whole and people not need to come every month for their block and sales pitch.  They could increase the price accordingly and I bet they would have a lot of people that would want to do those things.  One shop owner in Missouri let me take pictures of the BOM they were working on that was in 30's fabric so I could have the pattern since she had not completed the entire pattern when I was there.  She did not purchase a BOM by the manufacturer, but made up her own and wrote her own patterns.  It was a wonderful shop!  Gosh I miss that one!

 

I have also been over to FrogPond to see what Sandi is working on and I'm jealous.  I want to do a quilt like her's.  And I love Quiltworks and their site on FaceBook.   There are so many things I just keep putting pictures in and printing off patterns.  I told Kenneth today that I needed to pick up a couple of binders to put stuff in so I don't lose it or let it get messed up!  I really don't think I will ever run out of projects.

 

Well this is a short post but this is what I have been working on as well as working some more on the T-shirt quilt that I don't have the borders on yet.  I hope to do that this weekend also and I have the blocks from the guild that need to be put together and the tops for the Quilts for Kids that I need to quilt and get the binding sewed on before the next guild meeting which will be next week!  "Yikes, time flies when you're having fun!"  I hope you all have a lovely week of quilting.  Let me see what you are working on this week!

Why is it taking me so long to finish this???

There are so many different ways to make quilts that it is really hard sometimes to decide which project to start next.  Sometimes projects are just so time consuming that I find them difficult to complete.  It isn't that they are not pretty, it isn't that I have made some kind of error that just ruins it for me and it isn't really because I want to have another unfinished quilt laying in my stack of to do projects, they just take so long and I have a desire to complete something, or see something that I want to do now!  I'm so sure that none of you experience the same type symptoms (tongue in cheek).  The fact is that we are all human and sometimes we just pick a project that is larger than our attention span.  (I have a few of those.)  Through my few years of quilting I have learned that there are some projects that I just don't need to start, and there are some that if the size is adjusted then perhaps I would have some hope of finishing.

I have one project that I have been working on (I should say working on and off) that is just one of those that I want to finish, I love what I am doing and the meaning, it's just too darn big.  I wish I had gone with something smaller.  What inspired me to start this was a class I took and in one short class, (4 hours)  I basically completed my project of a small wall hanging.

I really had a lot of fun creating this in a class I took a few years ago.
Lots of great machine quilting and completed in just a few hours.

This was really a wonderful class and we spent the majority of the time doing the machine quilting on this piece.  Actually most of the class was the quilting and quilting is one thing I love.  Every leaf has a different quilting pattern as does each of the different sections of background and the borders.  All the different patterns were really neat to learn.

I was so enthused about how quickly the project went together that I immedately when home and finished the project and the started looking around for what I wanted to do next using the same technique.  Here are some of the things I did not take into consideration when I dove into my new project.

1.  When you do a class project you typically already have the fabrics that are going to be used or they are supplied for you in addition to any special supplies such as bias tape, fusables and spray adhesive or whatever is required for the project.

2.  If the fabric is supplied then typically the pieces are already cut for you, or at least they are rough cut so most of your class time is not spent at the cutting board.

3.  The pattern is supplied in a ready to use format.

Okay, lets start with number 3.  The pattern.  I now have the know how and want to pick a pattern.  I had been told where to look for patterns.  This was not something you could run out to the quilt store and purchase.  The advise was to purchase a coloring book and pick your pattern from the pictures in a coloring book.  That is a great ideal.  I now know that I could have picked dozens of patterns that would have made wonderful blocks for a quilt and would have been really easy to complete.  I could have even used the blocks in a Georgia Bonsteel type configuration and had the blocks all quilted and then put them together.  I could have made an awesome quilt in just a few days!!  I actually found the pattern I wanted to use in a relatively short time in a coloring book with Christmas scenes.  I chose a nativity scene.  Since I collect nativity sets I thought this would be wonderful.  I still think it would be wonderful.  Of course the next step was enlarging the pattern to the size I wanted which was large!!  This I managed on my copy machine by coping portions of the page enlarging them as I went to the size I wanted, then I had to tape all the pages together.  I believe I have something like 40 pages tapes together for this project.  Needless to say this took quite a bit of time to complete.  It was like a 3 day project just to get the pattern enlarged correctly.  Next I had to get my fusible fabric and the pattern was to be traced onto the fusible.  This part of the project only took me a couple of days.  Boy I was moving fast.  I had just spent a week just getting my pattern and getting it ready!

Now lets skip up the the very first consideration, the fabric.  I had to pick the fabric for this project and I really do strive to do things right and I know there are fabrics out there that are prints that when cut correctly you can get some wonderful effects.  I started to hunt my fabrics.  This process took about 4 months.  Every time I entered a fabric store I was on the lookout for fabrics that would give me exactly what I wanted.  I had the wise men the animals the doves the wood in the stable the straw, there was a night sky, oh this was a very detailed pattern, in case I forgot to mention that bit of information.  I would wind up purchasing 1/4 yard of fabric or a fat quarter for a beard.  This was getting to be a very expensive project also, but the effects are really worth the effort.

It may be a little difficult to tell at this stage that this is a dove, but the fabric I found
actually is feathers and I attempted to cut it so the feathers on the wings were
going in the right direction.  Yes fussy cut!



This section, which I believe you can tell is a beard I think is great.




Another section of beard and notice the skin tones. 
I actually used different skin tones for all the wise men
which meant different hair colors and types.



This picture shows two of the wise men and as you can see they are
very different.



The last picture also shows that this project is not complete.  As you can see, finding the right fabrics will make a huge difference in the completed project, when that happens. 

Now for the other thing I did not take into consideration when I started this project, cutting the fabric.  Almost every piece of fabric is fussy cut.  Doing fussy cuts takes an enormous amount of time if you are being very particular about the effect you are striving to attain.  The orientation of the pattern piece and the the orientation of that item on the quilt both play a part.  There are some pieces that I have cut several times before I achieved the effect I wanted.



My project hanging on my quilting room wall.

As you can see from the above picture, my project is not yet at the half way mark of completion.  One day I'm sure it will be a great show piece for my collection and will beautiful hung with some shelves around to hold a few of my nativity collections.  I actually have at least one nativity in every room of my house and in some I have more than one and I love them.  They are a constant reminder of my Lord and what he gave up for me.

I hope you have a great day, and a wonderful time quilting.  Let me encourage you to sign up for my blog.  I promise you will not receive emails trying to get you to purchase my products or use my services.  I hate it when I sign up for something and then get a mailbox full of junk!!