Earlier in the year, a number of quilty podcasts and blogs asked the annual questions: What are your resolutions this year? What are you goals? What do you want to accomplish? A few of them got creative and asked – what is your “word” for this year? I thought long and hard and I hadn’t created the blog yet so I didn’t post anything. But, in the end my word was “finish” and my goal is to finish 5 quilts. I finished Jacob’s and you can go to Quilt Gallery to see the 5 quilts I want to finish this year. I also didn’t want to start anything new. I have this problem with Quilting ADD that I found is fairly common in our world. I love to start new things. I love to start working with pretty new fabrics. I enjoy the beginning stages of quilt making: Picking fabric, picking which quilt I’m to do, etc. And while I enjoy piecing – I haven’t yet gotten around to the diligence required to actually finish projects. I’m fairly well along on various projects but only the 1 finish – ever. I’ve been quilting for 7 years and I’m a bit embarrassed about that. So – this year I wanted to finish the 5 quilts that are fairly well along the process. Why then did I buy 3 quilt kits at the Long Beach International Quilt Show a couple of weeks ago? Because – they are so pretty! And I can’t turn down a pretty quilt! And those are okay because they are one time purchases and they will sit in my kit bin waiting for their turn in my project line. But now I’m starting to get into BOMs – Block of the Months for anyone who doesn’t know. I used to do BOMs at my LQS in Los Angeles and while I wasn’t always up to speed with everything, I got them done much more quickly than the kits sitting in my stash. I love the idea of working on one block at a time and then at the end of 12 months (normally) I would have enough to complete a quilt. When we moved, I thought that eventually once I settle in and find a nice LQS in our new area I could start one up again.
I’ve been listening to Alison Rosen’s podcasts “Within a Quarter Inch”. These podcasts are really old. I believe she’s having issues with getting them all in one place but I was able to download them through the podcast app on my iPad. The dates all say 2008 and 2009 but I believe that the dates are wrong since the episodes are out of order. One of her older podcasts went on and on about her BOMs and how she has them mailed to her from various places. Well, that intrigued my fancy and so now I’ve gone looking for them. Of course, I only wanted one as I don’t think I can do more than one at a time. I’ve signed up for 3! How did I get myself into these. The first one I signed up for was at the Long Beach International Quilt Show. I happened to buy a kit from one of the booths and they mentioned their BOM. Since I was already intrigued by it and the BOM was nice looking, I immediately signed up. I signed up for the second BOM because I wanted to quilt a wool quilt. At the show, I was intrigued by the wool quilts and how pretty they looked. But the kits for a full size quilt were beyond my budget and I’m not interested in pulling up a pattern and purchasing wool. I want all of that part done for me as I learn how to use wool. So I thought a BOM for a wool quilt would be more up my budget. Then I happened to be on the website that Alison had purchased a number of BOMs and found “Moon Glow”. It’s so different than the fabrics I normally use and was similar to another quilt I saw at a quilt shop that I stopped at. I do not even remember which shop it was but it wasn’t my LQS. I remember wanting to buy a kit for it at the time but they didn’t have one. So now I have three BOMs all starting around the same time: September, October, November. 😉 You can see all the BOMs in the Quilt Gallery under the BOM section.
I’ve been updating my Quilt Gallery so when you stop by be sure to look there at the various pages. I’ve divided them into sections: 2013 Finishes, Current Projects, BOMs, and Works in Progresses. Obviously the Finishes section is a list of my finishes. It’s a very small list. 🙁 Then I’ve got Current Projects which lists the projects I’m working on now. They are not put away in the garage. They are actually in my sewing room/office and I work on them pretty regularly. Next come the BOMs which lists the BOMs that I mentioned previously. Basically I plan on documenting my progress on them here. And finally is the Works in Progresses section. This section is a list of projects I’ve started and for whatever reason have set aside. It probably makes more sense to call them UFOs and maybe I’ll change the name at some point. But right now, they’re WIPs. Eventually I plan on putting a KITs list here as well. It helps me to have all my projects listed down because it helps me to get myself together and work on those things that need to be worked on. As I update the gallery, I’ll try to write a post so that you will know what’s been updated and you’re not just going from page to page looking for the one I’ve updated.
So now I’ve committed myself to three new quilt projects and I purchased three new kits and I started two while I was transitioning from Los Angeles to Fremont: 2013 Craftsy BOM and the Grandmother’s Flower Garden. That’s 8 new projects so far. Please stop me now! To make matters worse – I recently learned of the Pacific International Quilt Festival, affectionately called PIQF by the locals, happening in October the weekend of my birthday! I plan on going and I plan on spending money. Ideally I want to register for classes and I’ve already marked which classes I want to take. I am still on the fence as I had planned on some things that weekend so I’ve got to do some shuffling but hopefully my plans clear up and I can register before the classes fill up. My goal is to be too busy with classes that I will not spend as much money purchasing kits. I really want the Sew EZ table and at the LB Quilt Show, I was told that they are coming out with a bigger table than the current one they have in November so I’m hoping to save my mula for that. /sigh – the life of a quilter on a budget.
Happy quilting all! I’m heading back away from my computer to my couch to hand bind Kayla’s Thirties Quilt.
Here are some pictures of the BOMs all in one spot:
Hampton Ridge
A Rainbow Garden
MoonGlow
Melanie