I’m a traveling quilter!

I am a Janome lover now (in addition to being a Bernina lover). My little Jem Gold is such a smooth and easy to use machine, I love it!  I am on the road this week and am traveling with the Janome.  I got bitten with a "finishing" bug and am now on a mission to finish as many WIPs (works in progress) as possible.  So I've brought cut up pieces from the Moroccan Getaway quilt by V&Co. using the Ombre fabric line.  I am able to make extra flying geese with the fabric that won't be used in the Block Bs to use in my own designs (spoiler alert, my first pattern is going to have flying geese).

I got my Bloom quilt back from the longarm quilter this past week as well.  I was so excited, I quickly added the binding so I could call it done!  It was my first quilt that I didn't quilt myself because I was afraid of ruining it with my awful (but getting better) free motion quilting (FMQ) skills.  This quilt is very similar to the Cozy Christmas quilt, being a Lori Holt sew along and using the same techniques for hand applique.  I'm so proud of the quilt and all the hours that went into making it.  Rhonda Walker from Olie & Evie did such a great job quilting it too.  The photo doesn’t do it justice.  This quilt has also been added to the completed quilts page, yay!

I have purchased books to learn how to FMQ better and I'm taking classes at QuiltCon2017 to grow my FMQ skills.  One of the things that impact how much you fight your quilt is how your table and sewing machine are set up.  I finally am investing in a table so I can drop my machine down to table top level (or close to it) for better ergonomic and sewing benefits (it should be here sometime next week).  I didn't want to invest in a larger table (even though I would have loved it) because of the size of my sewing room.  More to come on the lowered machine sewing table.

Recapping my very productive week:

Cozy Christmas -  I was able to catch up to the sew along after last week's inability to finish the snowman block before leaving to travel.  The snowman block is definitely my favorite, but all of them are just so cute! Lori Holt has turned some of the these blocks into cute little pillows.  I would love to make them into pillows, but I have higher priorities of projects that I want to work on so maybe next year.

I can't believe the sew along is already over half way over (block 7 was released yesterday).  This stocking block is also super cute and it finishes off Row 2 of the quilt.

Overall completion: 6 out of 12 blocks

Technicolor Galaxy BOM - If you don't know what this is, you should definitely go to Pile O' Fabric to see the finished quilt and join the class. It is amazing!  Shannon and I decided to do this quilt together and keep each other accountable on finishing the quilt.  We haven't worked on it in the last month, oops.  So we are targeting to finish the star blocks by this weekend.  Last week's goal was to finish the low volume colors on the star blocks.  This is the first project where I've done foundation paper piecing on wash-away stabilizer.  I actually love this method because there aren't any papers for you to rip out at the end and you can use normal size stitches when you piece.

This is what the final star block should look like, total of 12:

Here's both the sizes with just the low volume pieces completed:

Overall completion:  1 out of 11 sections (star blocks is section 2)

Pattern #101 - the pattern has been selected.  But that's all I'm going to say outside of Ombre fabrics by V&Co. and there will be flying geese!  I will need to look for pattern proofreaders and testers when I'm done.  I'm targeting end of October to have everything written and sample created.

9/27-10/4 Weekly Goal:
Available time for quilting:
Road: 2 out of the 3 nights (Tues-Thurs)
Home: Saturday, Sunday, Monday night

Projects I want to work on:
Moroccan Getaway
Cozy Christmas
Technicolor Galaxy BOM
Pattern #101

Goals for the Project:
Moroccan Getaway:  Finish all Block Bs. (34 blocks total)
Cozy Christmas: Block 7 & 8
Technicolor Galaxy: Complete the star blocks
Pattern #101: Start making the pattern.  Finish all cutting and start sewing!