Tag Archive | 2013 DM BOM

Fall Cleaning and Organizing

There’s nothing like getting back to a school routine to make you want to organize the kids rooms and really clean them inside and out. That’s what I’ve been working on mostly for the past two weeks. The hideousness of my son’s room was too much to share on a public website. But I’m happy to say that we are 90% done. That excludes the decorating effects. That is just picking up the accumulated crap. We have about 4 big bins of toys to donate, I’ve thrown out at least three full trash bags and we still have to go through his clothes.

Anyway – he loves his room again, and that is priceless for me. Gets him out of my sewing area with his snacks and drinks and shoes and sand-filled socks from the playground, etc…. WIN-WIN

Next up – my daughter’s room. We are pulling up the carpet in her room, and exposing the fairly decent hardwood floors in there also. My intention is to re-carpet again – but I’m waiting to decide after I see it all cleared out. Again, I want her to love to be in her room again for all the reasons pointed out above.

I did get a couple blocks made to finish up the series of the 2013 Designer’s Mystery BOM quilt.

Block 12 is on the left.

The great thing about this block is even though I may have cut the 1/4′ indention a bit close on some of the sides, when it is pieced into the quilt, this block is very forgiving. You won’t be able to tell.

I also got back my AYOS Clover quilt this past week. It is going to a friend and co-worker that just recently had to return to Colombia. She had been in the states for 6 years, but her application was denied to stay longer. She hopes to reapply again in a year and come back. We have an office branch in Colombia as well, so we still work together – but it is now over phone/email and Skype webcams.

The times I visited her apartment, I noticed that she had a preference to autumn colors. I hope she likes this lap quilt.

Linh at LiMa Sews did the quilting for me and it turned out great. She had no problem with my border of prairie points.

Can you see the oak leaf design she worked into the main part of the quilt?

I love the back too – lots of pretty polka dots!

I have to get the binding on before Monday if I want to send it for free with my boss on his trip to Colombia next week. Better get started!

Hope you have time for some quilty adventures this weekend. Have fun and thanks for stopping by to visit!

Jennifer

First Day of School – DONE!

Aug14

My kids started to school yesterday. My husband and I took them into school and waited while the morning gathering meeting was held (it is a small charter public school), then kissed them as they went into their big girl and big boy classrooms.

sniff ***sniff

My experienced child, posing for me in his 2nd grade classroom:

And my nervous baby girl, going into 1st grade. She had a great day though, she couldn’t stop talking about it last night 🙂

On to Quilting Updates!

I have gotten Block 11 done of the 2013 FQS DM BOM. I really love working with the Avalon collection by Fig Tree Quilts. I had made a really quick quilt earlier in the year with Avalon when it was just hitting the store shelves (or was that last year???). I only recently got it off to the quilter and back, but I haven’t shared it yet. I need to get the binding on it.

Here is my design wall from a couple of days ago – showing my Block 11 twins (on the right side):

Any one of these BOM blocks by themselves would make a beautiful quilt. I often think about which one I would pick, but my wish list is already pretty full.

My cutting table had Block 12 all ready to start. Since this picture was taken, I have pieced about half of these blocks and hope to finish it tonight or tomorrow. Love those Alphabitties, but my letter “G” has gone missing somewhere … 😦

Olaf the kitten is still doing well. Treating her eyes with some steroid drops several times a day. She is so affectionate too. She sticks really close to us when we are home. I was lucky to catch this picture, she won’t sit still for long unless she’s laying right on top of you somehow:

I hope you are having a great week yourself.

Don’t stress out – it is just school time again!

Jennifer

Summer 2014 Coming to a Close

Aug10

Hello kind friends and readers. Thank you for the patience and for checking in periodically to see if I would show up again. I’m still here. Time just decided to go into overdrive this past month. It has been just over a month since my last post, but not a lot of things accomplished in the quilting realm.

Work is busy. The kids went to summer camp every day and got to swim every day, which they loved. But that is over now. We just came back from a vacation getaway to Moody Gardens in Galveston, TX. It wasn’t a far drive from home, and in fact – my husband made an early morning trip back half-way through to get some cheaper snacks for the hotel room and a few forgotten items. Most of the time was spent in the water. I’m very tired of being wet and bound in a swimsuit. I bought my first swimsuit in 8 years for this vacation and I couldn’t believe how much those things cost. Especially ones that offer the … ahem… full coverage that I was looking for.

On a very sad note, I don’t think I mentioned that all 5 of our kittens tested positive for Feline Leukemia (FeLV). This is like contagious cancer for cats. It doesn’t spread to humans or other animals, like dogs. I had to go through the sorrow of losing 3 kittens in one day, then another kitten three days later. They are just over 5 months old and they fall so fast. All four that have passed had respiratory distress due to fluid building up in their bodies and starting to choke out their lung capacity. We have one kitten left – Olaf. When I took her in with the other sister, I had noted the night before that she had some cloudiness in her eye. The vet said it could be a tumor starting or just an eye infection. I have since taken her to the kitty ophthalmologist and they prescribed some steroid drops for two weeks to see how she reacts. They don’t think it is a tumor (relief). Her eyes are looking better already, but she will always have this underlying condition that I can’t control and at this point and I am so sad to know that at any time she may not make it past another few days. FeLV opens the door for infections or cancers to just come right in and take her down. We are doing what we can within our means to give her a comfortable and happy life and right now she is good.

So, I had been busy and depressed and not in much of a mood to sit and sew. Because that is usually a happy time for me. I don’t normally do ‘sad sewing’ or ‘angry sewing’, if you know what I mean.

There were a few days here and there that I found myself doing some piece work.

Here is my design wall today. I completed my two twin blocks for 2013 DM BOM – block #10. Next to it is the first block of the 2014 DM BOM series

Here is my cutting table at the moment:

I am working on Block #11. The folded stack of fat quarters is for another quilt that I haven’t started yet. And the clear envelope on the right side of the picture holds the first shipment from Fig Tree Quilts of the MODA Modern Building Blocks BOM program!

Here is a close-up of Block #11 that may be finished tonight:

Here are the pattern covers for Block #12 (the last block) and Block #2 of the new series that will be done next. I will be caught up after these are done.

I’m super excited about Fig Tree’s version of the MODA Modern Building Blocks quilt. It was offered through their website a couple of months ago, but it sold out quickly. Fat Quarter Shop is also offering this as a kit in September 2014. Here is a link to their site for that kit (click here).

A lot of the blocks will be made in the MODA Bella solids (like the original), but Joanna is also going to mix in some of her small prints and tone-on-tone fabrics from her newest collection called Somerset

In the first shipment, we received three cuts of Bella Solids. This fabric will be used to make five of the blocks in the pattern. One large block (36″) and four 6″ blocks. Their program is a total of 7 shipments.

Finally, I leave you with a super silly picture from our vacation to Moody Gardens. I love these kids!

Again, thanks for stopping by for a visit. I appreciate all of your emails and comments and hope to see you again very soon!

Jennifer

Aaaahhhh, That Feels Better!

Apr5

Wow, I needed that. A few hours spent on quilting and piecing is the best therapy. It isn’t free – but a lot more fun than an alternative!

I splurged a few weeks ago and ordered a 14 1/2″ square Creative Grids ruler from FQS. It is the same size as the unfinished RFTS (Reach for the Stars) blocks with their sashing added:

The hardest thing about the ruler was getting the plastic wrap off!

I was able to put the ruler to use twice already this weekend! I finished Blocks 7 and 8 for RFTS:

Reach for the Stars – Block 7

I was initially freaked out a little by the block, due to the light pattern instructions … but I broke it down into the components and it went together really well. The longest part was selecting the fussy cut areas for my applique circles.

Block 7 – Center

Then I moved into Block 8. At first glance, I thought … easy peasy!

Reach for the Stars – Block 8

Well, poop. Actually I said !@#$!@#$ a few times last night. With no finished sizes given for the sub units, I tried to oversize my cuttings so I would be able to trim down, but then I didn’t know what size to trim down into! Here’s a hint for you though … the center fussy cut square-in-a-square ended up being 4 3/4″ unfinished when I was done. Perhaps it is suppose to be 4 7/8″, but it worked out well for me at the other size.

Hint #2 – I did try to follow the pattern – but when they show you piecing the two sides with the corner squares and flying geese unit – piece the flying geese unit first, then add the squares. That is different than the instructions. My Open Gate Quilts Flying Geese Ruler worked great for this step too. Line up the side triangles to the pieced center triangle at the bottom first, and let the overhang fall off at the top points. The side units will be 3 1/2″ by 12 1/2″ when you are done.

RFTS Block 8 Center

You could certainly change this up and make 4 complete flying geese units with 4 corner squares and a center ‘square-in-a-square-in-a-square’ unit. You will have a few more seam lines in that black star – but it might work better for you if you are doing this block.

RFTS Blocks 7 and 8

I wanted to give up after I realized I would have to unpick the whole thing (except the center flying geese units). But I persisted and was done at around 2:15 am. So glad I made it though! They look great. Added the sashing strips this morning and got a group shot on my design wall:

RFTS Blocks 1 – 8

What’s next you ask? Well – there is still Block 9 instructions for RFTS in the latest issue of Quilters Newsletter, and I also got Block 10 this week from FQS on their 2013 Designer Mystery BOM. It will be a row of flower blocks! Cute I tell you!!\

I love that I am going between bright, happy colors and the soothing, calming colors in Reach for the Stars. Variety is a spice of life!

Tomorrow I will share pictures from Sherri Crisp in Knoxville. She has more blocks done for RFTS too! I just didn’t want to picture overload you. You can jump over to Dawn’s blog post (here) and see the pictures though, if you are in a hurry! She has posted since then also, with more participation pictures – go check it out!!

Have a great, wonderful, quilty, relaxing, fun weekend! (See how a little quilt therapy cheers me up??)

Thanks for stopping by – I love your comments too!

Jennifer

Busy, busy, busy…

Mar12

I wish I could say that I had been sewing in secret and that I had three finished quilts to show off…, but that just isn’t the case. Not much time devoted to my hobby at the moment. Last week, I did get done with the 9th block in the 2013 Designer Mystery BOM by Fat Quarter Shop. It is the last house block in the row quilt. The last three blocks are a mystery to me. We have had three basket blocks, three star blocks and three house blocks.

I was only having to look for one piece of fabric to make my two blocks from one package this time. The facing of the house between the door panel and the roof line called for a 6″ square of fabric, and I only had a piece big enough for one. No worries though, last month’s package had a perfect piece that I used.

Here’s version 1 of the block:

And here’s Version 2:

And here they are together on my driveway!

The more I look at my six house blocks, the more I know I will embellish with some creative embroidery when I’m done. Little doorknobs, and maybe some flowers in the window boxes.

Jennifer Thacker from Houston has also been getting some sewing done. She has completed Block 2 of the Reach for the Stars pattern. Her block is perfect! Love the paislely center in its frame… take a look:

The next edition of Quilters Newsletter will be in my mailbox soon – I got the digital edition email yesterday. Three more ready to go!

Finally, I celebrated a birthday yesterday. I had a great day, surrounded by wonderful friends at work and family at home. One of the ladies at work made me a beautiful pink fondant covered cake, with hand crafted roses. The kids had fun lighting and relighting the candles last night.

I am truly blessed.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Jennifer

Productive Weekend

Jan26

I received Block 8 of Fat Quarter Shop’s Designer Mystery BOM in the mail on Saturday afternoon. No one told me and I just noticed it sitting on my cutting table Sunday morning – but that didn’t keep me from getting it done today!

Block 8 is the second of three house blocks in the mystery BOM. This one is designed by Minick & Simpson. I made quick work of the cutting and labeling – 2 sets of course!

Look at all my scrap goodness I get to keep:

My husband is expecting a new smart phone this week, in which I will get his ‘old’ one which is much more advanced than mine. The pictures will be much clearer going forward!

Here’s the complete house block. There’s another one just like it – but you can get the idea.

Cute block – right? I see opportunities to embellish with some embroidery maybe later after I see everything revealed.

But just getting one (two) blocks done wouldn’t make this weekend that productive. I was also able to complete the first official block of Reach for the Stars!

(I’m also taking these pictures at night, which don’t do them justice)

I tried to figure out the sizes of the HST blocks within the pattern, but I just wasn’t that smart. The corner blocks were easy, they are 3 1/2″ unfinished. The middle section measures to be a 3 1/2″ x 6 1/2″ rectangle unfinished. However, when I tried to figure out the middle HST inside that rectangle, I guessed too small (2 1/2″ square). The outcome wasn’t that bad and I still like it. You will notice below that my square in the square doesn’t extend to touch the sashing.

Also, you will notice that the square appears to ‘float’ behind the fussy cut center. It really isn’t suppose to do that. BUT – I was at least consistent in my error and since I gave myself oversized pieces, I just trimmed down to size and it still all fit together. I’m happy with it. Love how it looks next to my center medallion.

This, for me at least, is truly a challenging quilt only because I don’t have anything to synchronize to as I go along. The next block I’ll follow the cutting and piecing as indicated and see how I measure up at the end. Maybe my 1/4″ seam is better than I know. Dawn, at First Light Designs, has already completed this block as well. Check out her post to see a very alternate and beautiful color scheme! She has great piecework!

Hope you were able to squeeze in some quality quilting time this weekend as well. It’s back to work tomorrow for me though. Thanks for stopping by!

Jennifer

FQS DM BOM Block 7 Done!

Jan19

I have actually gotten through several tasks this weekend, enough to fill two posts – but I’m breaking it up into two.

The first activity I did was to complete Block 7 of the 2013 FQS DM BOM. It is a house block and went together really quick. I used my new Alphabitties notion from FQS and I liked them! I will continue to use them on these patterns for sure – take a look below at my pieces all labeled and ready:

I didn’t even have to think twice before I grabbed my parts according to the pattern and ran them through the machine. And for some reason, they cling a little to the fabric due to static electricity I think, so they don’t slide off as easily as I thought they would. The tiles are printed the same on both sides also.

After a short amount of time – I had Block 7 done!

And, as per my routine, I was able to make two blocks from the one package:

This was probably the highest residual month so far. Look at all of these leftovers for my stash, even after making TWO blocks!

Yes, I made a few HSTs from the trimmings, but I’ll just hang on to them and see how I can use them later. They are 2″ unfinished.

LOVE these bright colors … BUT … because I LOVE variety also – here is my change of pace project that I also started this weekend.

Remember back late last year, I blogged here about a new magazine quilt pattern called REACH FOR THE STARS? It is being published in the Quilters Newsletter magazine over 7 volumes. I have the first two magazines so far, and I have the center block almost completed (pattern in first month).

I fell in love with the neutral color scheme and fussy cutting and wanted to try and match it as closely as possible. I started with American Gothic from Pam Buda and never stopped! I had added bits and pieces here and there from other collections and designers – but this is just a teaser for my next post! I’ll show you my fabric selections and the center block next time! I hope you will come back and see! Perhaps sew along? There are at least two other ladies that I know of that have started on this quilt also.

Until then – thanks for visiting and have a great remainder of the weekend!

Jennifer

New tool – or Scrabble anyone?

Jan15

Last week… Fat Quarter Shop offered a weekly Facebook sale that I COULD NOT RESIST. I have been doing really well in my new fabric purchases … but last week they offered all of their Fig Tree fabric at 50% off!! I usually buy 1/2 or 1 yard of each fabric in Fig Tree collections, but I had not done Honeysweet yet. That was all I needed! While I was in my shopping ‘high’, and in my burst of BOM activity, I decided to throw into my shopping cart the Alphabitties notion from FQS.

I’m also preparing Block 7 of FQS 2013 Designer Mystery BOM. It is a cute house block, but it has a lot of pieces to it. However, they mostly seem to be straight cut piecing. And Block 8 is due in my mailbox any day now. so I better get started… 🙂

FQS BOM Block 7

The Alphabitties notion seems self explanatory – but just in case, Kimberly Jolly of FQS has a tutorial on YouTube that I’ll watch tonight to see if there are some secrets (I hope that copied link works, if not click here to go to the FQS website for this notion and follow their link). Or I could start a Scrabble game with my kids…

These are brightly colored, hard plastic squares (but not completely inflexible) that help you label your little piles of pieces. Specifically when you are working on patterns that are drawn up by “It’s Sew Emma”. The FQS DM BOM also seem to be a good fit because they also put the fabric cuts into letter order… see below (blurry I know). Each cut of fabric will be assigned a unique letter, which you can then place your Alphabittie tile on to keep you from remeasuring the pieces when you go to put it all together. If you have done any of their patterns or these BOM projects, you know what I mean:

so – that’s my plan for today/tomorrow/Friday. I’ll let you know if I enjoyed using these new tiles.

Hope you are having a great hump day!

Jennifer

Loving my BOM rehab work!

Jan5

In the spirit of BOM Rehab (inspired by Sinta’s blog Pink Pincushion), I am really getting into my BOM projects again and LOVING IT!

I got Block 5 done for the FQS Designer Mystery BOM (Nov 2013 block). I’m just one block down now.

This may look like a standard pinwheel/star block – but there were a lot of pieces to put together for it. It took awhile!

Bright and colorful!

Here’s a picture of the pattern cover and a bonus block I made from the half square triangle leftovers:

I’m not sure what that block is called, but I just picked a layout that I liked. Probably some kind of bird block.

I had no problem getting my two blocks again and the bonus from one pack (if you don’t count getting a little bit of the background selvage in the quarter inch seam allowance):

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!

I had time this weekend to revisit another BOM that I started back in 2011! 2011!!! It is called The Generals’ Wives. I thought I had gotten farther, but I had only done 1 block so far. I’m not sure why – probably because it started right at the holidays and I got distracted. I fell in love with reproduction fabrics for a long time and acquired quite a stash. This BOM was from Quilter’s Quarters, but it was offered from Fat Quarter Shop, which is where I purchased my subscription.

Here’s the first block I did back in October 2011:

And here is block 2 from this weekend (I didn’t quite get the directional fabric worked out on the corner squares):

A picture of the pattern cover for Block 2:

Both blocks together:

I’m finding it hard not to ignore all the housework and parenting needs to work more on my BOM blocks! How about you – getting into your UFO/BOM projects yet this year?

Jennifer

It’s 2014 – Happy New Year!

Jan2

My family tried to stay up to watch the ball drop in our Central time zone, but one by one, we failed. My husband went first (I don’t think he really tried, it was only 9:30), then my daughter at 11:00, then my son at 11:45, and myself finally succumbed at 11:55 I think. Oh well, we all made it to today!

I am hoping to do something quilty every day this year. Blogging doesn’t count, so this will be a fast post. And these pictures below don’t count, because I did the work last night.

Here is Block 4 of the FQS Designer Mystery BOM for 2013. I love that dimensional look of the yellow print ‘frame’ behind the star:

It feels a bit odd to switch into this color scheme after working so long in the antique red, creams and tans of Midwinter Red. But it is so uplifting too to change gears! I continue to love AVALON by Fig Tree Quilts.

I got both blocks done and made some extra bonus blocks with the half square triangle leftovers:

I had a total of 16 remnants when I made the block of half square triangles. I used 8 to make the two pinwheels and the other 8 in a pattern to form a flower around a polka dot center. Not sure if or when I will use them, but I think they will come in handy when I am faced with two sets of blocks to make two quilts and I have one finishing kit.

I hope you had a great start to the year and have lots of quilty plans as well. Must go now, I have some quilting ‘me time’ to get to before we get to bed!

Jennifer

Seams Crazy

Quilting and Family – both crazy!

Tag Archive | 2013 DM BOM

Fall Cleaning and Organizing

First Day of School – DONE!

Summer 2014 Coming to a Close

Aaaahhhh, That Feels Better!

Busy, busy, busy…

Productive Weekend

FQS DM BOM Block 7 Done!

New tool – or Scrabble anyone?

Loving my BOM rehab work!

It’s 2014 – Happy New Year!

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