First OMG Challenge

I signed up for the OMG challenge - One Monthly Goal - thinking that it should be a piece of cake to complete these 5 Ben Biggs blocks. How wrong I was. I had too much time and did not get to it until today and have to post a blog about it by tomorrow. Tomorrow I will be sitting in a Canadian Guernsey annual meeting all day just like I was exactly a year ago when I cut out all those 140 buds and leaves out of Florianni wash a way fusible in preparation for the corner buds for  this quilt. Sigh.  To my defense, I baby sat sick little girl grand children a lot, was sick myself, took  8 year old Ava to New Brunswick to spend a week visiting Auntie Melanie and her babies, took a blogging break and had no internet for a week because of the ice storm here last week.

Ben Biggs Corner Buds so far

Also, I was machine quilting the Blue Roses quilt and having a most difficult time. My hands hurt a lot as I was trying to move the bulk around, I broke 3 needles on the Brother yesterday and finally switched to the Bernina and after resetting everything, and unstitching one of the blocks I finally completed the thing. In my mind, I could not get at the OMG because I had this thing spread out all over the tables and wanted to complete it first. Did I mention I do not do deadlines well?  

Quilting the Blue Roses

In reality I was having a too much fun working on the 1857 blocks. I had to prep a few to take with me and I ended up stitching a few extra corner leaves in preparation for the blocks to be released on Friday.The bottom 3 are not complete yet and I have not started 2 of the blocks. Those purple leaves with the hearts look a bit dark but maybe its the pink hearts that are a bit light. I am using left over reproduction fabrics from my Dear Jane journey. I did not realize just how many double pinks I had until I cut out lots of leaves using my GO cutter and custom leaf die. Those leaves are really easy to do this way and it takes about a half hour per block.

1857 Blocks so far

So, all in all, my first OMG was not an epic fail so much as I did not give it enough importance to get it done on time. I will try again next month but you will have to wait until April first to see what it will be.

Blessings,
Chris

Blue Roses

The sun is shining, Spring has arrived and so has the mud. I am taking a blogging break for  a couple of weeks. Going to visit the little boy grand children and I have some deadlines that are looming and I have been ignoring. So need to prep a couple more 1857 blocks and  finish quilting the Blue Roses. I put the binding on by machine. Usually, I stitch the binding to the back of the quilt, turn it over and top stitch it down from the front. I did not realize that I had stitched to the front until I was clipping it over. The mitered corners do turn over neater this way I found.

Blue Roses Binding

I love using these wonder clips for this. They do tire my hands though. It takes a bit of pressure to squeeze them open and my arthritic fingers do not like that.  I started the quilting by stitching in the ditch all around those sashing strips. Then I measured the border, marked it and basted all the way around and trimmed it before  putting on the binding. I still have all the free motion quilting to do in the blocks. This will be a simple scribble of hearts and flowers. I often do it in this order so there is less bulk around the outside for shoving into the machine opening. Sometimes I have a deadline for the quilt and quilt until I run out of time, but the binding is already on. This way, I only have to change the presser feet once. I started out using the walking foot. I will now drop the feed dogs, put in the see-through darning foot and go free motion. I am using a WonderFil wt 80 thread for the first time. It is finer than I am used to but it seems strong enough since I have not had any thread breakage so far.

When I get home I have my one monthly goal of completing 5 Ben Biggs to get done. I still have to prep 20 buds and 20 leaves to machine applique in the corners. I have 3 weeks to get that done. I can do this. 
Also, I have to get another wedding quilt going. And No, it will not be  hand appliqued.

Blessings,
Chris

One Monthly Goal

I have been seeing this OMG logo around blogland lately and wondered if I could join in and be successful. First of all, I have to understand the rules. Set one quilting goal for the month, write a blog post about it and link at the beginning of the month. Then write another blog post at the end of the month to show the completion of this particular goal. I could try it once. I might even succeed.

I found this out on Feb 8th just after the Feb link was closed. Okay, I will aim for March 1-7. Now to choose a doable goal and do it. That sounds easy enough. But what one quilting goal will I choose from the 471 things I am presently doing? It's not like I have to complete an entire quilt during the month. I can choose a doable chunk. I will have to be accountable. My integrity is at stake! Well, maybe not.

So often, I operate out of impulse. I might jump in and start a new quilt because I have all the fabrics and pattern sitting here, forgetting that I have done this a few times in the past couple of years, and  as a result, forgetting that I have many unfinished quilts on the go. When does a work in progress become a UFO? Let's just say, I have a few of each.

Or I operate out of necessity. I committed to completing a specific quilt for a specific person for a specific date. So I put everything else on hold and get it done. Or, I hop on a plane to visit someone and take along a few hand applique blocks. When was the last time I used the sewing machine? Oh, yes, back in November I sewed together all the CCCQ blocks and machine quilted it and bound it and gave it to my aunt for her 90th birthday. That's something I planned and worked towards for a year.

My One Month Goal for March will not be to complete anything. It will be to advance one specific quilt. But which one?   Since I wrote on my 2016 goals to complete, quilt and bind at least one quilt and that being Ben Biggs, then my OMG for March will be to complete 5 blocks that are already started. That is doable. It is machine applique work. Something I cannot take on a plane with me.

These are 5 blocks in progress. I pulled the pictures from my blog.

There will be no less than 4 buds and leaves in each corner of all 25 blocks. That's 100. Each.

I am using a wash-away fuseable called Floriani. I cut out the shapes, pressed them to the back of the fabrics, cut them out, then turned under a scant 1/4 inch and glued the edges under. Yes a lot of work. And I thought this would be a quicker way of doing it.Some of these are already applique down. Now to complete them.

Blessings,
Chris