Flimsy Alert! ~ Feathered Goose

 "Feathered Goose" - 60 x 60 inches

This is an oldie-but-goodie retired pattern from Judy Niemeyer. I'd purchased the kit sometime between Jan 2010 and Oct 2011, and it just sat in my storage room for a whole decade! So much gorgeousness just sitting there neglected.

So, in June 2020, I decided to wash the fabrics and cut everything out so I could use this as a stitch-off pile. I never saw it as a Work-In-Progress, so it didn't add to my list of things to do. It was simply a way to avoid having the hold the loose threads behind the presser foot every time I started a string of "real" work, and to one day have a cool bonus quilt top suddenly appear from nowhere!

Yesterday was that day!

My methodology for this: I'd prep as many paper piecing units as I could, then leave them in a stack to the left of my work area. When I finished sewing a chain of units of the priority project, I'd grab the top unit from my stitch-off pile and send it through. I'd leave that one on the threads behind my presser foot when I walked away with my real work, and the machine would be ready and waiting for the next chain of work without having to hold thread ends to start it up. 

Each time I clipped off my chain of work, there'd be one stich-off piece finished, and that went on the slowly growing stack to the right of my work area. When I ran out of prepped pieces, I'd carry the whole sewn stack to the iron, press those, prep them for their next addition, and restock my stitch-off pile. 

The last few weeks, that's been a pile of joining seams to sew up rather than paper piecing units, and now: Voila! A beautiful full-fledged Flimsy that was never scheduled to be worked on!  And one more UFO advanced to this stage. 

The whole operation worked so well, I just finished cutting out and organizing the Fire Island Hosta kit that I'd bought in 2015 - and has sat on my NETY list since then. (meaning: Not Even Touched Yet) This is a larger quilt, and it barely fits in my tote box for this purpose! 

I'm off to prep the first stack of stitch-off work from this don't-even-think-about-it UFO project, and then I'll get cracking on this week's Block of the Month focus.

(BOMs Away Monday is now on Facebook)

BOMs Away - Two Flimsies!

 

BOMs Away - Heather & Pat's documentation panels and some Affairs of the Heart

                    

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)

I put my hustle on this weekend and scored TWO flimsies in my BOM projects!

Saturday I wrapped up Heather & Pat's love birds Temperature Quilt top:

It is 96.5 x 106 inches, and I have some fancy-pants quilting planned for it. There are 3 quilts ahead of it at my longarm, though.

Sunday I put the last borders onto my Neptune's Gift:

This is 86 inches square, and I have no idea when it will get a turn on the longarm. Hopefully not too long from now, because it's amazing. 

Interestingly, my stitch-off project, Feathered Goose, also wrapped up this weekend! In fact, there were exactly as many units left to stitch a seam on as I had rounds of sewing on those two BOM tops. Kinda fun, actually!  This goes onto my domestic machine priority list to put the top together when I sew during the work week. It was very much a Happy Dance weekend!

(Except, now I have to prep whatever will be my next stitch-off project - but, boy are there plenty untouched kits in the storage room to choose from . . . )

I've organized the next BOM that I'm going to pull into my rotation since two are now off my list. Here are my colors (selected from left-overs from my Rainbow Dear Jane BOM from years ago) for Cadence Court, by Sassafras Lane:

I had almost everything I need in my stash, but I do need to pick up a couple yards of assorted blacks to augment my background and binding yardage. 

~*~*~*~

I have an announcement to make regarding BOMs Away Mondays. 

Subscription prices keep going up everywhere, including the one for having linky parties on your blog. After April, BOMs Away will no longer be held in this format. Instead, it is moving to a Facebook group! 

Kate and I will continue posting linky parties here each week for one more month, but you can also already access the new location:

BOMs Away! - Quilters' block-of-the-month motivation

The group is set up as a private group, meaning only members will see your posts there, and we will be screening requests to join the group so that spammers won't get in and drive us all nuts. One great thing about this move is that we can post progress any time we want, and you won't be left hanging if we've gone on vacation and forgot to set up an auto post with a linky party for you.

We hope to see you over there. I know I would not get a tenth the amount of BOM work done that I do without having this little "association" to post to. 

~*~*~*~

Did you work on a BOM type project this week? We'd love to see your progress!

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.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

BOMs Away - Heather & Pat's Love Birds

                   

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)

This week was for the temperature quilt that celebrates Heather and Pat's first year of marriage (which is intended for their 6th anniversary near the end of this year).

All the birds are connected in large panels of eight rows, except the final set, which needs me to make the key panel to finish connecting those. I also need to make the applique header to add at the top of the quilt, and then I'll put the 8 panels together. I'll address all that in a couple of weeks and have this flimsy put together by month's end.  I have some fancy-pants plans for the quilting on this. 

While sewing together birds and birds and birds, I needed to prep another round for my stitch-off project, Feathered Goose - and it's on the very last seam of the final set!

Oh! This weekend for BOM time, I also got the backing stitched up and the binding made for Neptune's Gift. I don't know when it will get a turn on the longarm, but these are ready to go when it does.

Speaking of Neptune's Gift, that one will be finished after one more weekend of attention on it, so I'll need the next BOM prepped. The kit I'd purchased last year (or was it 2020?) has been sitting out in the "quilt parlor" for several months, and I needed to get that room cleaned up for company coming soon. So I finished washing/ironing the fabrics for The Road Home.

After some 13 or 14 hours of careful cutting, it is all kitted into 9 bags, which I estimate will take 13 months of BOM work to produce the final top. Luckily, I hadn't purchased backing for it, because the full-BOM kit came with ridiculously generous yardage (as in 3/8 - 7/8 extra yard for every single fabric in the pattern). So I'll be making a patchwork backing of some sort to use those up.

All in all, it was a phenomenal BOM week here!

~*~*~*~

Did you work on a BOM type project this week? We'd love to see your progress!

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.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

BOMs Away - Neptune's Gift & Feathered Goose

                 

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)

It was the weekend for working on Neptune's Gift - I had hoped my Month 12 packet would get here in time for me to combine that work with my Month 11 work, since they're both the same thing. And it did, so I cut out all the pieces for the 40 remaining flying geese units, and got about half way finished with them all.

While doing that, I finished off these units of my stitch-off project, Feathered Goose.  

I always love the look of a paper pieced unit trimmed up and sitting next to the messy untrimmed units!  There is only one unit set left to paper piece for that quilt, and then the units can all be sewn together. Getting excited to be at that stage.

~*~*~*~

Did you work on a BOM type project this week? We'd love to see your progress!

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 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

BOMs Away - a Weekend In

                  

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)

I got a lot of sewing done on BOMs and such this weekend! We have a dramatic Covid spike in our area at the moment, so we decided we were just going to enjoy Home for the time being. 

This week's BOM was our Temperature Quilt.  All those dots from the last cutting session provided the final 5 for the last row I'd worked on assembling last month. . . 

And then made 4+ more rows!  

I cut out all the dots from Thanksgiving to the end of the year . . . 

And I prepped the documentation block for the bottom:

I always use the back-basting method for hand applique. For this block, I printed out my words in a font I liked, taped it upside down on my light box, and trace the outlines onto the back of my block's foundation. That's all the prep there is! The remainder is restful stitching during TV time.  

I used cutouts from the temperature blocks to prep the Key dots. 

 

Well, up to 65 degrees - after that I had to cut fresh dots out of the hotter colors. Our highest low was only 65 degrees. I never got to use my two hottest colors, as the highest high was only 95. 

And that pile of the other 350 cut-outs - I realized they would make excellent berries for some other project, so I put them in a baggie and stored them in my little Extra Applique Pieces drawer!  Future fun with those. 

While assembling my dots, I ran out of Stitch-Off pieces, so I prepped another round of those.

And I finished up the quilting of the large gray areas on my King size Dinner Plate Dahlia. . . After Navarre helped me figure out a template for my spines!

 This is my January longarming UFO focus, and I'm eager to get it onto the bed. 

A good bunch of work accomplished!  :)

~*~*~*~

Did you work on a BOM type project this week? We'd love to see your progress!

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 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

BOMs Away - Neptune's Gift, Stitch-Off, Dots, and a Buck

             

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)

Hello  :)

This week I picked up and finished the work for Month 7 on my Neptune's Gift block of the month:

These pieces are getting quite big! Now to catch up months 8 and 9, because 10 just arrived! That would be super if I can catch this up by the time 11 gets here.

While I was doing that, I prepped the next round of my Stitch-Off project, as I'd worked through the stack a while ago. These pieces are almost finished up! Just one more set of units, then this project will be ready for assembly.

(This is my Judy Niemeyer Feathered Goose quilt, from which I keep a stack of prepped units alongside my work area so I can grab one and put it through the machine after I've finished a round of work on my focus project. This lets me snip an entire set of chain piecing off the sewing machine, leaving the Stitch-Off piece on the thread. When I return with the next stage of chain piecing, I don't have to fiddle with holding the thread ends to start off fresh stitching - and over time it does save a significant amount of thread, for a bonus benefit.) 

I got the next batch of dots basted into turned-edge circles, and then glue-basted onto their background squares. This set brings me into October. Here are 4.5 weeks worth of temps, stacked by dot color:

Birds continue to get their finish-work attention during TV time. I have about 1/3 of them squared away now. No pic, though. 

But I do have a pic of this beautiful buck spending lunch time resting in our back yard a couple days ago. Isn't he gorgeous? He was here again last night with four sweet does. Guess they think he's gorgeous, too!  

~*~*~*~

Have you worked on any BOM type projects recently? We'd love to see your progress!

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 

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

BOMs Away - Feathered Goose units

 

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)

It's official: my Down the Rabbit Hole is off my BOM list for the month of February. I'd written it in as #2 on my APQ Challenge list for UFO piecing, and that's the number that was drawn for the new month. 

Since I'll be working that one as my priority quilt Mon-Fri starting tomorrow, I didn't give it attention for this weekend's BOM time.  Instead, I finished up these 20 units for my Feathered Goose.

Their leader-ender action was burning rubber while I was sewing the last two quilt flimsies I've shared. After that, there was just one seam waiting for attention. 

Now they're finished and trimmed, and these cool units that look like giant bow-ties are prepped for leader-ender duty. 

Which won't actually move much while I'm doing the rest of the applique work on the rabbit borders. . .   

Speaking of rabbits, I also did the next 8 temperature dots for my 2021 quilt:

~*~*~*~

And how are things at your place? Have you done any BOM type work lately? We'd love to see it.  :)

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.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

BOMs Away - Forever My Valentine, and a couple more

 

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)

Another weekend of BOM work at the machine.  :)

I bet this one thought it would never see the light again! I pulled out "Forever My Valentine" for attention, and realized it had been set aside even before I got Covid, because I had run out of some of the thread colors. 

So I put in an order for the needed thread colors, and since I couldn't do one block from start to finish, I got the base layer of the remaining 5 blocks prepped.

This is a pre-fused laser cut project. I don't like an unnecessarily insane buildup of fabric and fusible layers, so before I fused the large pieces down, I traced their position on the background fabric and cut out the inside of them, leaving about a 1/3 inch allowance. 

Used a milk pen, since this is black flannel.
The innards under the heart are cut out,
letting the applique ironing sheet show in the opening.

Just make SURE you have a Teflon applique sheet under the opening when you iron the pieces over the opening, because the fusible covers the entire open space, and will fuse into your ironing board cover if you don't use a protector sheet!

When I do my own fusible prep work, I cut out the guts of any large pieces so that if I cut away any background fabric from behind them, this won't be an issue. Also, it makes your fusible go MUCH further in a project. 

After that, I fused the next working layer onto the bases that I was able to complete the stitching for, so every remaining block is ready to go again once the ordered threads arrive.

Also, I've been using the Bag-of-the-Month project, "Feathered Goose," as a leader-ender project when I do priority piecing work. The final pieces for Bag 2 just needed their last seam put in, so I whipped those through last night:

And . . .  During TV time tonight, I'll finish the last tiny bit of stitching on Block 7 of Octopuses Garden. So I'll add that image soon.

Night lighting is a little weird on this.
It will get significant embroidery details
when I do that part.

If I feel as decent tomorrow morning as I did today, I am going to start easing in some longarm work - just one 30 minute session as a trial, and if that goes well, I'll do a morning and an afternoon session the rest of the week. Cross your fingers for me! My poor Halloween quilt has been loaded on the frame for at least two full months, waiting for attention, and I'd *really* like to also get my Once Upon a Star quilted up before Christmas Day.

~*~*~*~

Have you been able to do any BOM type work lately? We'd love to see it.  :)

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.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter